"Oh hi Ivanka": Finally, we know the least essential White House employee's real role [View all]

[DonViejo]

SATURDAY, SEP 9, 2017 01:00 PM EDT

Interrupting Big Daddy's meetings is neither an accident nor a harmless tic. It's been Ivanka's job for decades

ERIN KEANE

Congratulations to everyone with a “found something in common with Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell, WTF?” square on their 2017, Amirite? Bingo card. During a debt ceiling and disaster relief meeting Wednesday between President Donald Trump and congressional leaders, first lady-daughter Ivanka Trump pulled one of her patented Oval Office pop-ins and, according to CNN, Republican leaders were “visibly annoyed by Ivanka’s presence.”

Some of us have been visibly annoyed by Ivanka’s presence for the last 18 months or more, but thanks, guys, for catching up.

By now we are all used to what CNN calls the “Ivanka Drive-By.” (Let that sink in for a minute, will you? Can you imagine the collective spasms the Fox News dog-whistle brigade would have had if any member of Obama’s family had cultivated a White House habit cutely nicknamed a “drive-by?”) It’s her irritating and highly calculated practice of interrupting meetings, including high-profile media interviews, just to say hi to Big Daddy. Fans of the cult classic film “The Room” must feel a twinge of recognition at these distracting pop-ins, with Trump blathering on, making about as much sense as Tommy Wiseau ranting on his rooftop, before turning the mood on a dime with a casual, “Oh hi Ivanka.”

I’ll give Maggie Haberman $5 to throw a plastic spoon at Ivanka next time she pulls this move.

CNN connects the contemporary Oval Office Drive-By with a habit Ivanka first cultivated back when she was 10 years old and a student at Manhattan’s Chapin School:

Hiding in a janitor’s closet during recess, she would dial her dad, who would put her on speakerphone with whomever happened to be in his office.

“It was colleagues, it was titans of industry, it was heads of countries. He’d always tell everyone in the room how great a daughter I was and say cute things and ask me about a test I took,” Trump told CNN chief political analyst Gloria Borger in an interview.

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http://www.salon.com/2017/09/09/oh-hi-ivanka-finally-we-know-the-least-essential-white-house-employees-real-role/