{"id":20637,"date":"2017-03-27T16:51:41","date_gmt":"2017-03-27T16:51:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=20637"},"modified":"2017-03-27T16:51:41","modified_gmt":"2017-03-27T16:51:41","slug":"this-is-how-trump-defines-the-word-best","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=20637","title":{"rendered":"This is how Trump defines the word &#8216;best&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/26kristof-master768.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-20639\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/26kristof-master768-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/26kristof-master768-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/26kristof-master768.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Donald John Trump loves the word &#8220;best.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The president\u00a0plans to negotiate the <em>best<\/em> trade deals, create the <em>best<\/em> job growth programs, surround himself with the <em>best<\/em> people.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s the &#8220;best people&#8221; boast that caught my attention when I saw this column from my home boy Nicholas Kristof in the Sunday New York Times. (By the way, Kristof grew up in the Willamette Valley, just south of my hometown of Portland, Ore.)<\/p>\n<p>Kristof&#8217;s column talks about the president&#8217;s &#8220;triumph of incompetence&#8221; in the wake of the Affordable Health Care\u00a0 repeal\/replace debacle.<\/p>\n<p>The columnist noted:\u00a0&#8220;&#8230; Trump\u2019s record of appointments over all suggests a lack of interest in expertise. I\u2019m not sure that this is &#8216;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/blogs\/plum-line\/wp\/2017\/01\/19\/donald-trump-has-assembled-the-worst-cabinet-in-american-history\/?utm_term=.a41078d7b717\"><u><span style=\"color: #0066cc;\">the worst cabinet in American history<\/span><\/u><\/a>,&#8217; as a Washington Post opinion writer put it, but it might be a contender. The last two energy secretaries were renowned scientists, one with a Nobel prize, while Trump appointed (former Texas Gov.) Rick Perry \u2014 who once couldn\u2019t remember the department\u2019s name.<\/p>\n<p id=\"story-continues-7\" class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"313\" data-total-count=\"4081\">&#8220;Trump appointed his bankruptcy lawyer, David Friedman, to be ambassador to Israel. He chose Jason Greenblatt, another of his lawyers, to negotiate Mideast peace. He picked Omarosa Manigault, who starred with him on &#8216;The Apprentice&#8217; and has a record of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/03\/14\/us\/politics\/trump-advisers-experience.html\"><u><span style=\"color: #0066cc;\">inflating her r\u00e9sum\u00e9,<\/span><\/u><\/a> to be assistant to the president.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"274\" data-total-count=\"4355\">&#8220;The director of Oval Office operations is Keith Schiller, a former Trump bodyguard best known for whacking a protester. And the Trump team installed as a minder in the Labor Department a former campaign worker who graduated from high school in 2015, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.propublica.org\/article\/meet-hundreds-of-officials-trump-has-quietly-installed-across-government\"><u><span style=\"color: #0066cc;\">according to ProPublica<\/span><\/u><\/a>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"274\" data-total-count=\"4355\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/03\/24\/opinion\/sunday\/trumps-triumph-of-incompetence.html?_r=1\">Here&#8217;s the rest of Kristof&#8217;s column<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"274\" data-total-count=\"4355\">This is how Trump defines &#8220;the best people&#8221;?<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"274\" data-total-count=\"4355\">Kristof does note that some of the president&#8217;s appointments have been top-shelf picks: James Mattis at Defense, Steve Mnuchin at Treasury and Neil Gorsuch for the U.S. Supreme Court, for example.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"274\" data-total-count=\"4355\">But he\u00a0has\u00a0populated many of his key staff posts with rubes and rascals. Oh, yes, and the &#8220;populist&#8221; champion who said he would fight for the little guy has surrounded himself with billionaires and multimillionaires associated with Goldman Sachs, the outfit he demonized throughout his presidential campaign.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"274\" data-total-count=\"4355\">I don&#8217;t mean to sound too familiar with someone I do not\u00a0know, but &#8230; <em>you go, Nick!<\/em><\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Donald John Trump loves the word &#8220;best.&#8221; The president\u00a0plans to negotiate the best trade deals, create the best job growth programs, surround himself with the best people. It&#8217;s the &#8220;best people&#8221; boast that caught my attention when I saw this column from my home boy Nicholas Kristof in the Sunday New York Times. (By the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=20637\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">This is how Trump defines the word &#8216;best&#8217;<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,14],"tags":[1424,6600,3360],"class_list":["post-20637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-news","category-political-news","tag-donald-trump","tag-nicholas-kristof","tag-ny-times"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20637"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20637\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20640,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20637\/revisions\/20640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}