Blogocentric Formulations

This Just In - July 29

'The Briefing' Review: Speaking For Himself  
Written as part of "This Just In..."   for "Blog Harbor from The Talent Pond" 

I shouldn't take as much glee in this as I actually do, but the fact that Sean Spicer's book release isn't going quite according to plan is something that I'm following with a not insignificant amount of pleasure. Sean Spicer was, once upon a time, a respected communications director and chief strategist for the Republication National Committee turned White House Press Secretary and White House Communications Director for the Trump Administration. You may remember him from such memorable appearances at the lectern as when he defended Trump's demonstrably false claim that his Inauguration Day crowd size was the largest in history, and that time (during Passover, no less) where he asserted that the Assad regime in Syria is way worse than the Nazis because Hitler didn't use chemical weapons. You may have even seen Melissa McCarthy do a memorable impression of him on Saturday Night Live (more than once).

And here's the thing about Sean Spicer... he was one of the architects of - or at least a willing participant in - the early days of couching this administration's downright lies and falsehoods as "alternative facts" or "the President's opinions" even when they're contradicted by actual evidence. He was literally an active contributor to the current war on truth and positioning the administration so they're at war with the media whenever the media dares to question the lies they tell. So I'm not too keen on him getting off scot-free, trying to tear down norms and institutions for personal gain and then, say, making a guest appearance at the Emmys, doing the talk show circuit and teasing how much dirt he has on the administration that we'd all surely like to know... and now trying to profit off a book tour. The number of people who are trying to profit off their government service in this administration is really gross, and Spicer's one of the worst because he freakin' knows better, but chose to sell out in his own personal pursuit of money and power.

So it's with great satisfaction that I read Jonathan Karl's review of Spicer's book for the Wall Street Journal, which really isn't afraid to pull any punches and includes zingers like, "Mr. Spicer's book is much like his tenure as press secretary: short, littered with inaccuracies and offering up one consistent theme: Mr. Trump can do no wrong." It's also pointed out that Spicer frequently uses odd metaphors for Trump, including calling him a rock star, an inflatable ball in a swimming pool, the Energizer Bunny, and a unicorn on a high wire. (WTF? )

But the most savage paragraph (and one that Spicer brought upon himself) is the one that points out just how poorly written and edited the book itself is, which I will quote for you here in its entirety because it is truly remarkable, coming from someone who so desperately wants to be seen as an intelligent, savvy Washington power player:

Mr. Spicer has not been well served by the book’s fact checkers and copy editors. He refers to the author of the infamous Trump dossier as "Michael Steele," who is in truth the former chairman of the Republican National Committee, not the British ex-spy Christopher Steele. He recounts a reporter asking Mr. Obama a question at a White House press conference in 1999, a decade before Mr. Obama was elected. There are also some omissions: He writes about working for Rep. Mark Foley (R., Fla.), who he says "knew how to manage the news cycle. And on top of all that, he was good to staff and fun to be around." He never gets around to mentioning that Mr. Foley later resigned in disgrace for sending sexually explicit messages to teenage boys working as congressional pages.

Yikes.

But then again, is it any surprise that, in an administration full of incompetent people shamelessly trying to profit off of their access to the presidency, some of them completely half-ass their attempts to do it? Then again, like Michael Wolff's book which was similarly sensationalist and slightly less poorly edited, I'm sure this will be a bestseller and make Spicer a bunch of money regardless of how pathetic it is.