{"id":17405,"date":"2018-09-06T18:54:01","date_gmt":"2018-09-06T23:54:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=17405"},"modified":"2018-09-06T18:54:01","modified_gmt":"2018-09-06T23:54:01","slug":"between-the-lines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2018\/09\/06\/between-the-lines\/","title":{"rendered":"Between The Lines"},"content":{"rendered":"

In reference to anonymous Times<\/strong><\/em> op-ed<\/a> from a senior White House official detailing how officials are colluding to keep President Trump from making truly terrible decisions, NBC News<\/strong><\/em> has been collecting statements<\/a> from the many candidates, and I find I can’t help supplying the silent additions and corrections to them. This turns out to be a more serious exercise than one might expect. I shan’t capture the entire NBC News article, I’ll just supply my thoughts for each candidate:<\/p>\n

VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE: He’s been caught in a number of his own lies, so maybe he’s the one. But it’s clear, from his days as Governor of Indiana, if he’s bright enough to coordinate such an effort – or realize that it’s necessary.<\/p>\n

SECRETARY OF STATE MIKE POMPEO: Despite his politicization of the CIA, his experience there and as Secretary of State may have broadened his horizons enough to “be the guy”.<\/p>\n

DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE DAN COATS: “Oh, I wish I had, I wish I had.” Coats was publicly castigated by Trump personally, and of course the intelligence community has been dissed by Trump on numerous occasions. But I suspect he’s too circumspect.<\/p>\n

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY KIRSTJEN NIELSEN: You can bet your poker hand she did it. Her reputation is absolutely in shreds, and this is the only way to restore it.<\/p>\n

DEFENSE SECRETARY JAMES MATTIS: Too busy.<\/p>\n

DIRECTOR OF THE OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET MICK MULVANEY: He’s a lunatic in Trump’s vein. He might do it if he saw personal opportunity to advance up the career ladder, though, because that’s what Trump would do.<\/p>\n

DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT SECRETARY BEN CARSON: He may have been too sleepy.<\/p>\n

TREASURY SECRETARY STEVE MNUCHIN: This guy’s a cipher, but his lack of prior government service suggests it’s not him. Don’t put too much money on that bet.<\/p>\n

DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS SECRETARY ROBERT WILKIE: Too busy cleaning up prior Republican war detritus to write something like this.<\/p>\n

LABOR SECRETARY ALEX ACOSTA: Who?<\/p>\n

CIA DIRECTOR GINA HASPEL: “Yes!”<\/p>\n

COUNSELOR TO THE PRESIDENT KELLYANNE CONWAY: You bet she did. It’s part of makeup sex with her husband, trenchant trump critic George Conway.<\/p>\n

EPA ACTING ADMINISTRATOR ANDREW WHEELER: He’s been a non-entity, so I dunno. If it was still Pruitt, the answer would be a slobbery NO, because his mouth would be XXXXXXXXXX[1]<\/sup><\/a>.<\/p>\n

AGRICULTURE SECRETARY SONNY PERDUE: Who? Probably too busy trying to buy off Trump-voting farmers who are now weeping over the tariff-wars.<\/p>\n

SMALL BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION ADMINISTRATOR LINDA MCMAHON: This former pro-wrestling executive wouldn’t possibly be this subtle. She’d deliver – in person.<\/p>\n

ENERGY SECRETARY RICK PERRY: It’s possible. I can’t imagine he enjoyed the Trump-praising session all that much.<\/p>\n

SECRETARY OF COMMERCE WILBUR ROSS: This guy is scum<\/a>, and I saw a report that Trump balled him out once. I could see him tossing a hand grenade into Trump’s shorts while trying to make like an angel.<\/p>\n

WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL DON MCGAHN: Perhaps. I don’t have much of a read on the guy.<\/p>\n

TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY ELAINE CHAO: “But she wishes she was.”<\/p>\n

U.S. AMBASSADOR TO RUSSIA JON HUNTSMAN: But why?<\/p>\n

HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY ALEX AZAR: Mr. Azar is keeping his head down until the shrapnel has cleared. Then, and only then, will he claim credit.<\/p>\n

U.S. TRADE REPRESENTATIVE ROBERT LIGHTHIZER: He said, “I did not write it. It does not reflect my views at all, and it does not reflect the views of anyone I know in the Administration.” He then returned to his hermit’s life in the Ural Mountains.<\/p>\n

SECRETARY OF EDUCATION BETSY DEVOS: She was too slow composing the essay to claim to be the author.<\/p>\n

U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED NATIONS NIKKI HALEY: By temperament, yes, by access, probably not.<\/p>\n

Just going through them and contrasting them with the top people in either of the previous two Administrations makes clear just how much of a debacle this amateur has brought about, because it’s very easy seeing at least half, if not more, of these senior officials<\/em> having it in for President Trump. The Obama and Bush Administrations? Even if their ideology didn’t suit you, it was a lot more difficult to find rank incompetence, although I will admit the FEMA guy in the Bush Administration turned out to be a total loss. Bush called him Brownie.<\/p>\n

But in comparison … wow. Just wow.<\/p>\n

\n

<\/a>
\n1<\/sup>I like to pretend this is a mildy family-friendly blog, so I shan’t quite say that<\/em>. Just remember that Mr. Pruitt’s picture is next to the word sycophant<\/em> in the latest Merriam-Webster<\/em><\/strong> dictionary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In reference to anonymous Times op-ed from a senior White House official detailing how officials are colluding to keep President Trump from making truly terrible decisions, NBC News has been collecting statements from the many candidates, and I find I can’t help supplying the silent additions and corrections to them. \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17405"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17405\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17408,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17405\/revisions\/17408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}