You have no “Administration”. You have a cluster of belligerent, incompetent liars (Conway, Spicer, Stephen Miller) going on TV contradicting each other and embarrassing the country.
You are presiding over the worst roll out of a new administration in American history. It’s a farce. More importantly, it’s dangerous.
At the rate you’re going, you’ll be gone by Fourth of July and we’ll be stuck with Mike “Prayer Breakfast” Pence. Do you think Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell are going to save you?
Please. You’ve got one foot out the door and the other on a banana peel.
Jim Baker can help. Yeah, that Jim Baker. Reagan’s Chief of Staff and Treasury Secretary and Poppy Bush’s Secretary of State.
He’s the toughest, smartest, most competent political operator in the Republican Party in the last 50 years. He’s a former Marine who knows how to kick ass and take names.
Ask Al Gore. Baker oversaw the legal, political, and PR aspects of the Florida recount for GWB in the 2000 Election.
Ask Benjamin Netanyahu. As Poppy Bush’s Secretary of State, Baker barred Netanyahu from the State Department building. Netanyahu, at the time an official in the Israeli Embassy in Washington, had said that the US policy in the Mideast “was based on lies and deception”. Suffice it to say, Jim Baker ain’t no wimp.
Call Baker. Ask him to come to Washington for 60 days and organize your Administration. Give him guidance on people you will not accept in your Administration (you did the right thing keeping Elliott Abrams out … he would have been more Sheldon Adelson’s guy than yours), but give him a relatively free hand in getting the State Department and Defense Department staffed.
In case you are unaware, State and Defense are important departments. Both of these departments have a competent, confirmed Secretary in place … Tillerson at State and Mattis at Defense. Each of these Departments need a couple of dozen confirmed Undersecretaries, Deputies, and Assistants to execute their mission. Leaving these departments hollowed out and vacant is a dereliction of duty on your part and constitutes an impeachable offense.
Face it, you do not have the ability or background to staff these positions without expert advice. You need help immediately.
Get Jim Baker on the phone. If he won’t do 60 days, take him for as long as he’ll come. To let him know that you’re serious, tell him that you are prepared to thank Kellyanne Conway, Sean Spicer, and Stephen Miller for their service and that they will no longer be in the employ of the United States government when he arrives in Washington.
That should get him to Washington in a New York minute.
Addendum
You will notice I have had nothing to say on General Flynn or Steve Bannon.
On Flynn, I consider him to be somewhat of a pathetic character. He was my candidate for Trump Teamer most likely to go Dr. Strangelove on us by coming out for a briefing wearing a tinfoil hat claiming that Islamic Jihadists were polluting our precious bodily fluids. We’re going to miss you, General Flynn. Get some rest. Don’t call us, we’ll call you.
Steve Bannon is a special case. He does not belong in the category of belligerent incompetent liars that are on TV daily making stuff up, trying to impress their Maximum Leader by demonstrating their loyalty and “toughness”. Bannon has wisely stayed off TV. Nothing to be gained out there right now. He has let some on the left compete with each other making ridiculous, unsupported charges … Howard Dean (“Nazi”), Elizabeth Warren (“White Supremacist”). Neither of them produced any evidence to support their claims, and both have diminished themselves by their reckless sliming.
Steve Bannon is an interesting guy. He’s a self-made man. He’s got money in the bank and doesn’t need the job. I’ve listened to 90 minutes or so of his talks before different groups. He’s candid, bright, and engaging. In other words, he doesn’t talk in the incomprehensible babble of a career Senator.
I will post again on Wednesday, March 8, 2017 or before if the news flow dictates. I may put up a special post on Bannon if the ridiculous sliming continues.
Comments are welcome at tomc[at]wednesdayswars[dot]com. Comments will be addressed in subsequent posts.