This Is the Most Criminal Dereliction of Duty in the History of the American Presidency
The Washington Post offers a staggering vista of lies and blundering—and blundering lies—that is the sad history of the Trump administration response to the pandemic.
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politic...nl22388083
_By Charles P. Pierce
Dec 21, 2020
washington, dc september 11 us president donald trump, flanked by us vice president mike pence l and advisor jared kushner, speaks in the oval office to announce that bahrain will establish diplomatic relations with israel, at the white house in washington, dc on september 11, 2020
?
“Spirit! are they yours?” Scrooge could say no more.
“They are Man’s,” said the Spirit, looking down upon them. “And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased."
—A Christmas Carol, Stave III
The Ghost of Grifters Not Yet Past was everywhere over the weekend. In the New York Times, we read about how the Ghost had arranged for a meeting of the political Chronic Ward in the White House. In the Washington Post, we read about how the Ghost had visited his feral children, Ignorance and Want, upon the land by giving them national political leaders who couldn't pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were on the heel, and, worse, had no desire to learn how, even in the midst of the greatest public health crisis in a century.
While the Times's account of the Mad Hatter's seditious tea party is the flashier story, it is the Post's deep spelunking into the administration*'s brutal (and quite deliberate) mishandling of the pandemic that is more likely to resound in historical memory as the most criminal dereliction of duty in the history of the American presidency.
By comparison, Herbert Hoover at the onset of the Great Depression and James Buchanan as the nation slid toward the Civil War were positive pikers in their disregard for the office they held and the country they were chosen to lead.
The catastrophe began with Trump’s initial refusal to take seriously the threat of a once-in-a-century pandemic. But, as officials detailed, it has been compounded over time by a host of damaging presidential traits — his skepticism of science, impatience with health restrictions, prioritization of personal politics over public safety, undisciplined communications, chaotic management style, indulgence of conspiracies, proclivity toward magical thinking, allowance of turf wars and flagrant disregard for the well-being of those around him...
And then there's the Dauphin Prince, who apparently had some power and almost no respect, possibly because he was marginally less of a fck-up than everyone else was.
“It was entirely tactical troubleshooting and, to be fair, it was pretty successful, with the ventilators and this and that, but it was whack-a-mole,” said an outside Republican in frequent touch with the White House.
Part of Kushner’s coronavirus management approach was an ambitious effort to bring in a cadre of young consultants from the private sector as volunteers. The group was dismissively referred to as the “Slim Suit” crowd.
But problems quickly emerged with Kushner’s team of volunteers. The group was not issued government laptops or emails, forcing them to use their personal Gmail addresses — a practice that often hindered their efforts to procure personal protective equipment from companies that were understandably skeptical of inquiries coming from nongovernment email accounts.
The volunteers in charge of PPE procurement also did not know the Food and Drug Administration requirements for importing the protective equipment, and found themselves spending unnecessary time Googling basic questions and calling the FDA for guidance.
Remember: I said, "marginally."
“The knock against Jared has always been that he’s a dilettante who will dabble in this and dabble in that without doing the homework or really engaging in a long-term, sustained, committed way, but will be there to claim credit if things go well and disappear if things go poorly,” a former senior administration official said. “And this is another example of that.”
Things got so bad under Kushner's command that the president* actually got mad at him, which apparently happens once every Great Conjunction. But, by my lights, the worst episode in the piece comes when the CDC recommends face-covering generally for the country, and the assembled He-Men of the administration* decide to make wearing a mask a losing proposition in the White House dick-measuring contest.
Skepticism of masks became a hallmark of the Trump administration’s pandemic response. On April 3, when the CDC recommended that all Americans wear masks, Trump announced that he would not do so because he could not envision himself sitting behind the Resolute Desk with his face covered as he greeted visiting dignitaries.
The president stressed that mask-wearing was “voluntary,” effectively permitting his legions of followers to disregard the CDC’s recommendation. In the months that followed, Trump was only seen wearing a mask on rare occasions, instead following the advice of Stephen Miller, Johnny McEntee, Derek Lyons and other trusted aides to think of masks as a cultural wedge issue.
Here we have the Universal String Theory of the Administration*'s dereliction of duty. There is the dereliction of duty in the response to the pandemic, and then there is the original dereliction of duty in placing a dime-store gauleiter like Stephen Miller anywhere close to a center of power. You really do have to read the whole thing to get an idea of the staggering vista of lies and blundering—and blundering lies—that is the sad history of this particular national crisis.
Just leave it with Jared.
As for the council of crazy that the NYT revealed, I choose for the moment to look at it as simply yet another Camp Runamuck freak show. Michael Flynn is, at this point, an out-and-out fascist. Sydney Powell has left this earthly plane, never to return. (In fact, if it weren't for Lin Wood, the bughouse lawyer down in Georgia, Powell might be reckoned as the leading whackadoo in the American bar.)
Nevertheless, the meeting was a marriage of two of Fletcher Knebel's old political potboilers: Night of Camp David, about a president who cracks up, and the more famous Seven Days In May. And that is not something with which I am comfortable.
During an appearance on the conservative Newsmax channel this week, Mr. Flynn pushed for Mr. Trump to impose martial law and deploy the military to “rerun” the election. At one point in the meeting on Friday, Mr. Trump asked about that idea...Part of the White House meeting on Friday night was a discussion about an executive order to take control of voting machines to examine them, according to one of the people briefed on the discussion.
Mr. Giuliani has separately pressed the Department of Homeland Security to seize possession of voting machines as part of a push to overturn the results of the election, three people familiar with the discussion said. Mr. Giuliani was told the department does not have the authority to do such a thing.
If you're keeping score at home, and that must be hard to do under the bed, Rudy Giuliani helped turn off the idea of making Sydney Powell a special counsel, but he was fine with confiscating voting machines, and had to be turned off himself by...wait for it...Ken Cuccinelli. There's another month of this. As Tiny Tim observed, God help us all, every one.
The Washington Post offers a staggering vista of lies and blundering—and blundering lies—that is the sad history of the Trump administration response to the pandemic.
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politic...nl22388083
_By Charles P. Pierce
Dec 21, 2020
washington, dc september 11 us president donald trump, flanked by us vice president mike pence l and advisor jared kushner, speaks in the oval office to announce that bahrain will establish diplomatic relations with israel, at the white house in washington, dc on september 11, 2020
?
“Spirit! are they yours?” Scrooge could say no more.
“They are Man’s,” said the Spirit, looking down upon them. “And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased."
—A Christmas Carol, Stave III
The Ghost of Grifters Not Yet Past was everywhere over the weekend. In the New York Times, we read about how the Ghost had arranged for a meeting of the political Chronic Ward in the White House. In the Washington Post, we read about how the Ghost had visited his feral children, Ignorance and Want, upon the land by giving them national political leaders who couldn't pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were on the heel, and, worse, had no desire to learn how, even in the midst of the greatest public health crisis in a century.
While the Times's account of the Mad Hatter's seditious tea party is the flashier story, it is the Post's deep spelunking into the administration*'s brutal (and quite deliberate) mishandling of the pandemic that is more likely to resound in historical memory as the most criminal dereliction of duty in the history of the American presidency.
By comparison, Herbert Hoover at the onset of the Great Depression and James Buchanan as the nation slid toward the Civil War were positive pikers in their disregard for the office they held and the country they were chosen to lead.
The catastrophe began with Trump’s initial refusal to take seriously the threat of a once-in-a-century pandemic. But, as officials detailed, it has been compounded over time by a host of damaging presidential traits — his skepticism of science, impatience with health restrictions, prioritization of personal politics over public safety, undisciplined communications, chaotic management style, indulgence of conspiracies, proclivity toward magical thinking, allowance of turf wars and flagrant disregard for the well-being of those around him...
And then there's the Dauphin Prince, who apparently had some power and almost no respect, possibly because he was marginally less of a fck-up than everyone else was.
“It was entirely tactical troubleshooting and, to be fair, it was pretty successful, with the ventilators and this and that, but it was whack-a-mole,” said an outside Republican in frequent touch with the White House.
Part of Kushner’s coronavirus management approach was an ambitious effort to bring in a cadre of young consultants from the private sector as volunteers. The group was dismissively referred to as the “Slim Suit” crowd.
But problems quickly emerged with Kushner’s team of volunteers. The group was not issued government laptops or emails, forcing them to use their personal Gmail addresses — a practice that often hindered their efforts to procure personal protective equipment from companies that were understandably skeptical of inquiries coming from nongovernment email accounts.
The volunteers in charge of PPE procurement also did not know the Food and Drug Administration requirements for importing the protective equipment, and found themselves spending unnecessary time Googling basic questions and calling the FDA for guidance.
Remember: I said, "marginally."
“The knock against Jared has always been that he’s a dilettante who will dabble in this and dabble in that without doing the homework or really engaging in a long-term, sustained, committed way, but will be there to claim credit if things go well and disappear if things go poorly,” a former senior administration official said. “And this is another example of that.”
Things got so bad under Kushner's command that the president* actually got mad at him, which apparently happens once every Great Conjunction. But, by my lights, the worst episode in the piece comes when the CDC recommends face-covering generally for the country, and the assembled He-Men of the administration* decide to make wearing a mask a losing proposition in the White House dick-measuring contest.
Skepticism of masks became a hallmark of the Trump administration’s pandemic response. On April 3, when the CDC recommended that all Americans wear masks, Trump announced that he would not do so because he could not envision himself sitting behind the Resolute Desk with his face covered as he greeted visiting dignitaries.
The president stressed that mask-wearing was “voluntary,” effectively permitting his legions of followers to disregard the CDC’s recommendation. In the months that followed, Trump was only seen wearing a mask on rare occasions, instead following the advice of Stephen Miller, Johnny McEntee, Derek Lyons and other trusted aides to think of masks as a cultural wedge issue.
Here we have the Universal String Theory of the Administration*'s dereliction of duty. There is the dereliction of duty in the response to the pandemic, and then there is the original dereliction of duty in placing a dime-store gauleiter like Stephen Miller anywhere close to a center of power. You really do have to read the whole thing to get an idea of the staggering vista of lies and blundering—and blundering lies—that is the sad history of this particular national crisis.
Just leave it with Jared.
As for the council of crazy that the NYT revealed, I choose for the moment to look at it as simply yet another Camp Runamuck freak show. Michael Flynn is, at this point, an out-and-out fascist. Sydney Powell has left this earthly plane, never to return. (In fact, if it weren't for Lin Wood, the bughouse lawyer down in Georgia, Powell might be reckoned as the leading whackadoo in the American bar.)
Nevertheless, the meeting was a marriage of two of Fletcher Knebel's old political potboilers: Night of Camp David, about a president who cracks up, and the more famous Seven Days In May. And that is not something with which I am comfortable.
During an appearance on the conservative Newsmax channel this week, Mr. Flynn pushed for Mr. Trump to impose martial law and deploy the military to “rerun” the election. At one point in the meeting on Friday, Mr. Trump asked about that idea...Part of the White House meeting on Friday night was a discussion about an executive order to take control of voting machines to examine them, according to one of the people briefed on the discussion.
Mr. Giuliani has separately pressed the Department of Homeland Security to seize possession of voting machines as part of a push to overturn the results of the election, three people familiar with the discussion said. Mr. Giuliani was told the department does not have the authority to do such a thing.
If you're keeping score at home, and that must be hard to do under the bed, Rudy Giuliani helped turn off the idea of making Sydney Powell a special counsel, but he was fine with confiscating voting machines, and had to be turned off himself by...wait for it...Ken Cuccinelli. There's another month of this. As Tiny Tim observed, God help us all, every one.
