This is today’s unsettling development for the political world:
I am pleased to announce that our highly respected Ambassador to Germany, @RichardGrenell, will become the Acting Director of National Intelligence. Rick has represented our Country exceedingly well and I look forward to working with him. I would like to thank Joe Maguire….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 20, 2020
He may be highly respected in Trump’s eyes, but not anyone approves. Steve Benen, for example:
To know anything about Richard Grenell is to know he spent several years annoying people as a prominent internet troll. I generally try to avoid blocking people on Twitter, but even I found Grenell’s juvenile antics so grating that I took advantage of the platform’s “block” feature.
After one exasperating exchange in 2012, the Washington Post’s Dave Weigel asked him, “Shouldn’t you eventually get a job and quit trolling people?”
Seven-and-a-half years later, the notorious online pest has a job …
Here’s the thing: Donald J. Trump’s idea of successful is far different from most everyone else’s. The key is in the labeling of Grennell as an Internet Troll:
In Internet slang, a troll is a person who starts quarrels or upsets people on the Internet to distract and sow discord by posting inflammatory and digressive,[1] extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community (such as a newsgroup, forum, chat room, or blog) with the intent of provoking readers into displaying emotional responses[2] and normalizing tangential discussion,[3] whether for the troll’s amusement or a specific gain. [Wikipedia]
Stubborn aggressiveness? Never apologize? For Trump, these are positive character traits, and the fact that Grennell is neither respected nor effective are, at best, secondary negatives; they may not even register with Trump.
For Trump, “losing,” like McCain supposedly did, is the anchor that will sink you. So long as you can slither out of every difficulty, you’re a winner, and that’s all he cares about.
And that’s not acceptable in any sector of society, frankly speaking. As a diplomat in Germany, he could do little damaged in his incompetency.
As the replacement for Dan Coates, former Director of National Intelligence? I suppose it’ll depend on how well the bureaucracy in the various intelligence agencies can ward him off.
