The most clueless man in Washington
Guess who?!
http://theweek.com/articles/696013/most-clueless-man-washington
The most clueless man in Washington
Damon Linker
May 3, 2017
President Trump's most vociferous critics warn that we shouldn't allow the president's bug-eyed tweets and other erratic statements to distract from what's really important — namely, the administration's graft, grifting, Russian intrigue, racism, and efforts to advance the interests of big business. This implies that there's a core of consistent and coherent intent to the man who occupies the Oval Office, and that many of his public statements are deliberate attempts to divert attention from this intent.
But what if this is wrong? What if it's foolish to treat anything Trump says or does as more or less substantive or important or revealing or significant than any other? What if all of it is a distraction, all the way down?
A distraction from what? From everything: From what the government (Congress, the courts, the rest of the executive branch) is really doing. From who's really in charge, formulating foreign policy, and acting as commander-in-chief of the armed forces. From what's happening in the wider world — both in the U.S. and abroad.
The takeaway from Trump's first 100 days in office isn't a list of accomplishments or failures but rather a nugget of hard-won knowledge about the president himself: He is so comprehensively ignorant of policy and history, so thoroughly lacking in a core of settled beliefs or convictions, that the Oval Office might as well be unoccupied.
snip//
Is Trump lying about the latest iteration of the GOP's health-care bill? Or is the president of the United States merely the most clueless man in Washington? Is his continuous cycle of blustering threats and unprompted retreats the most brilliant fake-out negotiating strategy in human history? Or (far more likely) is he multiple leagues out of his depth, attempting to employ dime-store marketing gimmicks to some of the most complex, challenging, multi-dimensional problems in the world?
But really, why should we even try to answer such imponderable questions? We have abundant evidence to support the supposition that the president is a nullity. Short of removing him from office (which remains a pipe dream), we're stuck with him for the next 44 months. With any luck, we'll continue to muddle through with the grown ups in the administration running the show behind the scenes.
What happens when there's a genuine crisis? Hell if I know.
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