There is just so much to loathe about Mold Spice as press secretary. For starters his demeanor. He thumps out on stage to the podium, shoulders hunched, head down, either stone faced or with a slight scowl, opens his book of propaganda crib sheets, and finally raises his head to look at the assembled reporters, his stance saying “You wanna do something about it?” before a word is even uttered.
Then, there’s his style at the podium. He got off to a disastrous start on Inauguration Sunday, with his Josef Goebbels proclamation that Trump’s crowd was the biggest ever, period. After the outrage and mockery of that performance died down, someone must have given him a tranquilizer, he was more quiet and subdued, and occasionally joked, or at least tried to, with the press corps. But the more that Mein Furor does to implode not only his infantile Presidency, but the entire republic, andthe more untenable Spicer’s position becomes, the more aggressive and probing the press questions become, the more he slips back into his former persona, arrogant, bullying, and even condescending and insulting to reporters, especially April Ryan.
And his aforementioned jokes. In his sedated persona, it sometimes worked, he normally quipped about innocuous things, and usually early in the presser, and sometimes was rewarded with mild laughter. But as the mood and topics darken, the jokes have become forced, and often about inappropriate subjects. Sometimes his chuckles draws forced laughs from the press corps, which leads to them being chastised by commentators for their inappropriate response to his behavior.
But to be fair, there are mitigating circumstances. Spicer is not a natural front man for the cameras. He was the chief flack for Priebus at the RNC, and most of his work was written press releases, or simple statements on camera. His interviews were likely one-on-one, and the subject content was normally not very controversial. Aggressive questioning in an unfriendly environment is not in his normal playbook.
Sean Spicer has his back to the wall. He is not in a normal role as a press secretary. Normally, they advise reporters of the Presidents schedule and activities, and try to “educate” the press to the administrations positions, get them to report it to the public. Put the administration “spin” on it in other words. Spicer can’t do that, there are no positions here, the entire press conference is questions about the latest scandals, and the newest revelations. He is defensive for a reason. He’s performing for an audience of one, Da Boss. Trump tries to watch ever presser, to find out what the press is saying about him, grist for his tweets, and also to see how Spicer responds. He doesn’t want conciliation, he doesn’t want logic, he wants arrogance and and a slap down, ‘shut up! What Trump says are the facts!’.
But, as terrible as False Spice is, he’s not the worst, for one good reason. Because he is not a natural at giving responses in a confrontational atmosphere, he has a habit of occasionally accidentally wandering off of the beaten path. How often has he gotten frustrated or flustered, and said something so patently false that it is laughable, and it is repeated on broadcasts over and over again, or accidentally slipped up and revealed something not asked about, or through a slip of words, accidentally confirmed the veracity of the original assertion. I can suffer through his daily bullshit just watching for those golden nuggets.
But as hard as it is to believe, we could do worse than Spicer. We could be stuck with Boris Epshteyn for a press secretary. As a long suffering, reluctant, long term observer of Boring Boris during the campaign, on panel shows, a presser featuring Esphteyn would be about as interesting as a wake for a coworker you really didn’t know, but had to go along with everybody else to. No matter what the topic, and no matter how aggressive the question, it simply slides off of his oily exterior, and with a quiet, robotic voice and a small pitying smile, he ignores the question, and slides smoothly into a robotic recital of whatever talking point he is primed for. He is a human plastic blow up bop doll. It would be like watching one of the characters in the “Hall of the Presidents” at Disneyland. Both the media and the population would become numb to it.
So, here we are. You can see the level of my desperation to find a glimmer of optimism, drowning in this roiling sea of propaganda bullshit, to be able to rationalize about Sean freakin’ Spicer not being the worst we could be saddled with. Please God, make it STOP!