The Establishments war on Donald Trump
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Title: Playing Four-Dimensional Chess With the Mooch
Source:
Weekly Standard
URL Source: http://www.weeklystandard.com/playi ... with-the-mooch/article/2009110
Published: Aug 3, 2017
Author: Jonathan V. Last
Post Date: 2017-08-03 12:16:34 by Tooconservative
Keywords: None
Views: 12543
Comments: 45
Whatever else you want to say about Anthony Scaramucci, he was a character. Maybe not a good character, but a character nonetheless. And while the White House will be a better, more stable place with him gone, in a certain way, I’ll miss him. But Mooch’s brief moment strutting and fretting upon the stage provided a nice illustration of one of the aspects of Trumpism that I find most alarming. After Mooch was appointed, I had conversations with a couple pro-Trump friends who objected to my characterization of Mooch as being unprepared and ill-suited for the job of White House communications director. Their arguments to me went something like this: You say that the Mooch doesn’t have any relevant experience and that his temperament is unsuited for his job. But “experienced” guys like Sean Spicer are worthless and Mooch is crazy like a fox. He knows exactly what he’s doing and he’s a genius. Just like Trump, he’s playing four-dimensional chess. But the problem with the “four-dimensional chess” argument is that it’s unfalsifiable. And we saw this on Monday when Mooch was fired. Suddenly my pro-Trump friends were arguing that Mooch’s dismissal was a sign that Trump was being serious and bringing discipline to his White House. In short: Hiring Mooch was a stroke of genius. And firing Mooch 10 days later was also a stroke of genius. In other words, once you start seeing “four-dimensional chess” in one setting, you’re likely to see it everywhere. Consider, for instance, the South Carolina primary debate where Donald Trump accused George W. Bush of treason. Was Trump correct? Did Bush literally—not figuratively—commit treason? And if it wasn’t true, then was making this charge a foolish mistake? Rush Limbaugh didn’t think so. He divined a deeper strategy on the part of Trump that was brilliant in its complexity. Okay. So what about when Trump spent a week in a public fight with the parents of a dead American soldier? Was that a brilliant strategic maneuver, too? Or how about Trump’s decision to start publicly criticizing Attorney General Jeff Sessions? In each of these cases, my pro-Trump friends have assured me that Trump knows exactly what he’s doing. But my concern is that once you go down this road, it becomes impossible to pass judgment on anything Trump does or says. Every policy choice, every utterance, is right and smart and strategically sound simply because it comes from Trump. It’s almost as though Trump’s partisans have lost the ability to analyze actions or statements independent of their source. If Hillary Clinton had hired Anthony Scaramucci (who was a big donor to her, and Barack Obama, and Joe Biden, and John Kerry, and Harry Reid, and you get the picture) would that have been a subversively brilliant choice? Or is the choice only subversively brilliant because it’s Trump making it? In theory, it ought to be easy to wish Trump well and hope he achieves his agenda while simultaneously acknowledging his mistakes and shortcomings. Republicans used to do this all the time with their politicians. But there’s something about Trumpism that makes people insist that all the president does is play perfect baseball. He never makes a misstep and anything that goes wrong is someone else’s fault—the media, the Deep State, John McCain, Bob Mueller, Jeff Sessions. Take your pick. Which is why the Trump Train has always seemed less like a political movement and more like a personality cult. Even so, I’ll miss Mooch. The cult was more fun with him in the mix. Poster Comment: I too miss Mooch terribly. General Kelly is a killjoy. 
Anthony Scaramucci blowing a kiss after answering questions during the press briefing in the Brady Press Briefing room.
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#3. To: Tooconservative (#0)
You appear to have something of a man-crush on this clown. What's up with that?
I just miss the Mooch. I'm inconsolable, like most of the D.C. press corps. We were all expecting so much fun with the Mooch. C'mon, he left his wife for Trump when she divorced him while 8.5 months pregnant and then his baby was born in late July while he was on the road with Trump at a rally in Ohio. Missed his son's birth! And Trump fired him anyway a week later. And Kelly frogmarched him out of the WH an hour after he became chief of staff. Alas, Mooch, we barely knew ye. (I stole that line from a snarky WS article.) The writer did make a great point there about how amazing it is that Trump played four-dimensional chess to appoint Mooch and then played more four-dimensional chess to fire him only 11 days later. So the question becomes, "Is that really four-dimensional chess or is Trump just kind of blundering around and making a spectacle of his WH staffing issues?". Besides, I've posted a half-dozen Mooch articles total. Unlike you who routinely will post five or six cop-bites-dog, cop-shoots-old-lady stories in the sidebar, one after the next. And you do it multiple times per week. So you don't get to say "Enough with the Mooch already". You less than anyone else at LF.
Wouldn't dream of doing so. Just pointing out your obvious infatuation with the guy. Just come out of the closet already. Geez!!
You've posted at least 5-10 times as many articles about Jeff Sessions this year. Do you finally want to come out of the closet and declare your man-love for the attorney-general?
It's not because I adore him the way you apparently do with "Mooch". Not that there's anything wrong with that.
You must be a humorless drone if you don't see how hilarious Moochgate really was. It reminds me of that Antarctic expedition 3-4 years back, where they kept getting icebound, running out of food, then rescued, then icebound, then rescued again, until they finally ended up on Antarctica for weeks because all the rescue attempts had already disrupted the vital window for resupply in the summer thaw at the South Pole. I recall some people never understood why it was so funny. Perhaps you are a dour person who doesn't grasp the humorous side of life. Or even some low-brow schadenfreude.
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Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/LatestI too miss Mooch terribly
#5. To: Deckard, redleghunter (#3)
(Edited)
You appear to have something of a man-crush on this clown.
#6. To: Tooconservative (#5)
So you don't get to say "Enough with the Mooch already".
#7. To: Deckard (#6)
Wouldn't dream of doing so. Just pointing out your obvious infatuation with the guy.
#8. To: Tooconservative (#7)
You've posted at least 5-10 times as many articles about Jeff Sessions this year
#9. To: Deckard (#8)
Replies to Comment # 9.
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