Tag Archives: White House

national news

Chaos set to explode at White House

Reince Priebus got the boot as White House chief of staff because, among other things, the staff was fighting openly among its members.

Donald Trump enlisted Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly to right the ship. Kelly signed on as chief of staff, kicked out some of the troublemakers and settled into his new gig as the president’s keeper.

Then came the midterm election. It didn’t go quite so well for the president and the Republican Party. The battling within the White House resumed.

Kelly now is among those closest to the president who not only is involved in some of the rhetorical brawling, he might be on the short list of key staffers about to be shown the door.

His successor at Homeland Security, Kirjsten Nielsen, is thought to be on the bubble. Defense Secretary James Mattis, too. Same with Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. Media are reporting that press secretary Sarah Sanders might depart by the end of the year. Rumors also are flying about Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’s future.

Now we have first lady Melania Trump engineering the departure of national security adviser John Bolton’s top aide. Holy moly, man!

Have I mentioned that the president’s “fine-tuned machine” is in need of a serious lube job? There. I just did.

John Kelly pledged to stay through the 2020 election. It looks now as though that pledge won’t bear fruit. What do you suppose might be driving him away? Is it the president’s SNAFU over declining to visit the cemetery containing American servicemen who died in World War I? Is the ongoing chaos that keeps the White House in a state of constant upheaval?

Whatever it is. Whatever is troubling the entire staff is likely to bring another wave of resignations/dismissals.

Get the grease gun for that White House machine.

national news

Civility now appears farther away than ever

Those of us who lament the lack of civility in our public debate between elected officials are going to be disappointed when the next Congress takes its seat in January.

We’ll have a divided legislative branch: Democrats will control the House of Representatives; Republicans will run the Senate.

The White House, of course, remains in GOP control.

Donald Trump has called — ostensibly — for “peace and harmony.” He said he wants it. He has vowed to work toward it. His performance in the wake of the midterm election suggests he doesn’t mean what he said.

Democrats are gearing up for a subpoena blizzard. The new congressional committee chairs are threatening to summon White House officials left and right to Capitol Hill. They want to question them on, oh, damn near everything under the sun.

Donald Trump now is declaring that the election that produced a Democratic takeover of the House and narrowing of the GOP margin of the Senate is a product of electoral fraud. Sound familiar? Sure it does. It’s the president’s fall-back position when the balloting doesn’t go his way.

Democrats are sure to be angry. Republicans are certain to be defiant.

Donald Trump is a lead-pipe cinch to continue his habit of lying through his teeth.

Peace and harmony are nowhere to be found.

Count me as one American who is continuing to be disappointed in our federal government.

media news

Media have become part of the story? Sad

Jim Acosta is now a household name.

He is known to many Americans who by all rights shouldn’t really know — or really give a hoot — about someone who is just doing his job.

Acosta is chief White House correspondent for CNN, the cable news outlet that has been demonized by the president of the United States. Donald Trump has singled Acosta out as a “rude, terrible person” who conveys “fake news” for a network that should be “ashamed” to employ him.

This is not supposed to happen. Journalists get paid to report the news, not to become part of the news. It’s a trend that has been developing and evolving for some time, even pre-dating Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy.

Trump, though, has elevated this phenomenon to a level that many of us don’t understand or even recognize.

The White House has yanked Acosta’s press pass because he allegedly put his hands on a young intern who tried to grab a microphone from him Wednesday during a combative presidential news conference. I watched the incident as it happened; I didn’t see Acosta do anything of the sort.

Acosta isn’t the only reporter to be singled out by the president. April Ryan, a veteran political reporter, got roughed up by Trump on Wednesday. So did PBS correspondent Yamiche Alcindor.

There have been others. CNN’s Jake Tapper has felt the wrath of the president, who routinely blasts “failing” media outlets that publish or broadcast news reports the president deems to be “too negative.” Reporters for other broadcast and cable networks have been tagged as openly hostile. He calls them false, fake, a hoax.

Who’s to blame for this ridiculous turn of events? I lay this at the president’s feet. He has chosen to declare open rhetorical warfare on the media, the constitutionally protected profession he has labeled the “enemy of the American people.”

The president’s continuing hostility against the media only feeds the beast, if you will. He can end this idiotic feud simply by accepting that the media are going to report the news without regard to whether their reporting is favorable or unfavorable.

The media shouldn’t be part of the story.

Reporters, furthermore, shouldn’t become household names.

national news, political news

Beto loses, but in a way he wins

I cannot recall a time — before now — when a candidate has lost a campaign for public office and then is mentioned as a possible presidential candidate in just two years.

Beto O’Rourke came within 3 percentage points of defeating Ted Cruz for the U.S. Senate seat in Texas. O’Rourke is a Democrat; Cruz is the Republican incumbent senator.

That’s a big deal worth mentioning, given that Texas hasn’t elected a Democrat to any statewide office since 1994. The last Democrat to win a U.S. Senate race was the late Lloyd Bentsen, who was re-elected to the Senate in 1988 while he was losing his race to become vice president on a national ticket headed by Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis.

O’Rourke gave Cruz all he could handle. He gathered more than 4 million votes out of 8.2 million ballots cast. O’Rourke ran as a progressive Democrat. He didn’t tack to the middle. He carried his progressive message to every one of Texas’s 254 counties. He told the folks in the Texas Panhandle the same thing he was telling them in Dallas County, Travis County or Harris County.

O’Rourke led a Democratic Party slate of candidates and perhaps helped down-ballot candidates make their races more competitive. Mike Collier lost the lieutenant governor’s race by about 4 percent; Justin Nelson came up short in the race for attorney general by the same margin. Virtually all the Democrats on the statewide ballot were competitive in their races against Republicans; the exception was Lupe Valdez, who got hammered by Gov. Greg Abbott.

So, what does the future hold for Beto O’Rourke? Hmm. Let’s see. Oh, John Cornyn’s seat is up in 2020. Might there be another Beto candidacy for the Senate in the offing? He isn’t being cast aside as a has-been, having lost his bid to defeat Sen. Cruz.

Indeed, he is continuing to be hailed in many corners in Texas and around the nation as a potential political superstar.

And to think that Beto is basking in this standing as a losing candidate. Go … figure.

national news

Kanye West: presidential adviser?

I do not mean to denigrate Kanye West, who I guess is a pretty good rapper/singer/reality TV celebrity spouse.

But it’s fair to ask this question. Doesn’t the president of the United States have more credible experts with whom to consult on matters such as gang violence, prison reform and, oh, whatever else he and Kanye West are going to discuss at the White House?

West is going to meet with Donald Trump in the White House to talk about the big things. I guess he’s also going to get some love from Trump over the stated support that West has given to the president, which likely explains why he’s been invited to the White House in the first place.

This is the kind of publicity stunt that Trump craves. I’m sure you’ll recall how West’s wife, Kim Kardashian, ventured into the Oval Office to plead for the release of a woman who had been imprisoned wrongly for a drug violation. Trump commuted the woman’s sentence and Kardashian basked in the credit she received for making it happen.

It was a reality star-meet-reality star moment for the president, whose prior claim to fame was as the host of “Celebrity Apprentice,” yet another so-called “reality” TV series.

Now he’s welcoming Kanye West to the White House.

I don’t know about you, but there surely must be more legitimate experts with whom Trump can consult on prison reform and gang violence.

If only they would agree to meet with this president.

Donald Trump

Hoping that ‘truth’ wins this war

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Bob Woodward’s book “Fear” doesn’t plow a lot of new ground regarding Donald J. Trump’s slipshod administration.

Still, to hear a renowned print journalist declare there to be a “war against truth” within the administration has a way of getting one’s attention.

“Fear” has been published. I’m awaiting my copy via Amazon in a few days. Woodward has been making the talk-show circuit, telling interviewers that the president is waging a “war against truth.”

It is the 19th book Woodward has written. He has covered nine presidents of the United States, dating back to the Nixon administration. All the presidents from Richard Nixon forward — Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama — have felt the sting of Woodward’s penchant for reporting the truth.

The current president has taken an entirely different tack when pushing back against Woodward. He calls the jounalist’s work “fiction” and has launched a campaign to discredit a man known for meticulous reporting techniques. He produces multiple sources and stands squarely behind his reporting.

Time to ‘wake up’

I continue to believe the reporter more than I believe the president, a man known as a serial liar who appears genetically wired to prevaricate … even when the truth stands in the way.

Woodward said his former boss at the Washington Post, the late Ben Bradlee, used to live by the credo that “the truth will emerge” no matter what.

I’ll maintain the faith that the truth will emerge even as the president seeks to deny its existence.

Donald Trump

Trump vs. Woodward: My money is on the journalist

If I had to pick which man — Donald J. Trump or Bob Woodward — is more credible, believable, truthful and trustworthy, I am going to go with Woodward every day of the week …  and twice on Sunday.

Woodward’s 19th book, “Fear,” was released today on the 17th year commemorating the 9/11 terror attack. It tells a stark story of dysfunction within the Trump White House operation. It speaks to attempts to prevent the president from acting on his more dangerous impulses.

Trump has blasted Woodward. So have many of his top aides, senior advisers, Cabinet hands. I’m interested in the lack of specificity regarding the criticism.

Woodward’s history as a journalist — dating back to the Watergate era that he covered along with his Washington Post reporting partner Carl Bernstein — reveals a journalist who takes meticulous care to ensure he reports the truth.

White House steps up attacks

I am sitting out here in the peanut gallery; I am aware that I am far from the fracas. However, Woodward’s reporting techniques have served well enough for him over the course of more than four decades. He has achieved iconic status for a good reason. The man does a thorough job of ensuring the veracity of whatever story he is seeking to tell.

Trump? His record of veracity?

Umm. Not so good. Not nearly so reliable.

For the president to challenge the reputation of a legendary print journalist, thus, is laughable on its face.

Except that none of it is funny.

national news

When have we ever discussed presidential fitness?

I’ve been walking along this Earth for a lot of years. I’ve been watching politics for most of my life. For the life of me I cannot remember a national discussion that comes close to mirroring what we’re hearing at this time about the fitness of the man who serves as president of the United States.

We didn’t hear it at this level when President Nixon was mired in the Watergate scandal. We didn’t hear it in 1984 when President Reagan stumbled in his first debate with Walter Mondale, only to say at the second debate that he wouldn’t “exploit for political purposes my opponent’s youth and inexperience.”

These days, the discussion has turned to Donald J. Trump’s actual fitness for the job. There’s open discussion about invoking a constitutional amendment that would strip the president of his powers. There is talk among White House aides about the president’s “impulses” and whether this man has the capacity to understand the myriad complexities of his high office.

Am I missing something? I just don’t recall ever having this discussion at any time, at any level with our previous presidents.

And yet, here we are.

The White House is pushing back. Trump allies say the president is fully capable. They say he’s engaged in the nuance of policy. They’re condemning the “gutless coward” who wrote that anonymous op-ed published in The New York Times, the essay that talks about the theft of memos from Trump’s desk and the effort to protect the nation against the president’s more dangerous instincts.

Yes, Trump promised he would be an “unconventional president.”

Boy, howdy! The man has delivered on that promise.

Bigly!

Donald Trump, national news

‘Well-oiled machine’ needs serious lube job

Donald John Trump’s delusions keep mounting up.

Take what he said again this weekend, that the White House is “well-oiled.” It’s all going swimmingly, according to the president. No worries at all. The executive branch is functioning precisely as it should and the president — he hastens to add — is doing more than any president in history.

A new book, “Fear,” written by legendary Washington journalist Bob Woodward, tells a different story. And, oh yes, there’s that now-infamous anonymous essay published in The New York Times that tells essentially the same tale that Woodward has laid out.

And that is? The White House is rife with chaos. Staff members are in near-panic mode. The president cannot be trusted to make the right decisions every time.

Donald Trump says it’s all a ruse. He said Woodward has made up all the things he reports in “Fear.” The mystery essayist is a “coward” who faces a Justice Department investigation, according to Trump.

That is the sign of a well-oiled machine running the executive branch of the federal government? Hardly, man. It’s the sign of a White House and a president with a shallow bench that cannot fill key posts.

Yep. The White House is in serious disarray.

The anonymous essay doesn’t tell us much new about the White House operation, say observers in Washington, D.C. As for the Woodward book, it, too, tells of a chaotic atmosphere.

Trump can believe what he says, I suppose. What galls me and perhaps millions of other Americans is that he expects others to believe what he says as well.

I do not believe him. The White House has become something just short of a loony bin.

media news

Anonymity produces courage

A mentor of mine, a fellow who gave me my first job in daily journalism, once said that newspaper readers have the right to judge what people said in opinion pieces against those who write them.

In other words, anonymity was a non-starter.

So, the New York Times today has just upset that norm. It has published an op-ed column by a “senior White House official” that declares that the White House staff’s first order of business is to protect the nation from Donald Trump’s more dangerous impulses.

Are we now going to dismiss this officials dire warning merely because he or she didn’t put a name on the piece that the NY Times has just published?

I’m not ready to do that.

Read the essay here.

Over the years I edited opinion pages in Oregon and in Texas, I rejected many requests for anonymity. Most people who wanted me to shield their identity was because they would be embarrassed by what they had to say. That wasn’t good enough. I usually didn’t hesitate telling them so. Yes, there are exceptions: rape or incest victims come to mind; I didn’t get any such requests during my nearly four decades in journalism.

The individual who has written this piece for the NYT appears to be motivated by a high calling. This individual doesn’t want to lose his or her job and believes that staying on the job is vital to continuing to protect the nation against the president’s nuttier notions.

Still, having said all that, I wish the individual who wrote essay this would have put a name on the essay. He or she would have lost a job, but there would be others at their respective posts who would remain faithful to the mission of protecting the United States against the president of the United States.

Think of how strange it is that we’re even having this discussion.

Weird.