{"id":27723,"date":"2020-02-20T13:42:44","date_gmt":"2020-02-20T19:42:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=27723"},"modified":"2020-02-20T13:42:44","modified_gmt":"2020-02-20T19:42:44","slug":"but-hes-a-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2020\/02\/20\/but-hes-a-success\/","title":{"rendered":"But He&#8217;s A Success!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This is today&#8217;s unsettling development for the political world:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">I am pleased to announce that our highly respected Ambassador to Germany, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RichardGrenell?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@RichardGrenell<\/a>, 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&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/realDonaldTrump\/status\/1230287397377626112?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">February 20, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>He may be highly respected in Trump&#8217;s eyes, but not anyone approves. Steve Benen, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/rachel-maddow-show\/trump-s-choice-intel-director-called-national-disgrace-n1139711\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">for example<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"endmarkEnabled\">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&#8217;s juvenile antics so grating that I\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/rachel-maddow-show\/trumps-ambassador-germany-ridiculous-start\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">took advantage<\/a>\u00a0of the platform&#8217;s &#8220;block&#8221; feature.<\/p>\n<p class=\"endmarkEnabled\">After one exasperating exchange in 2012, the Washington Post&#8217;s Dave Weigel\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/daveweigel\/status\/268928897310134273\">asked him<\/a>, &#8220;Shouldn&#8217;t you eventually get a job and quit trolling people?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"endmarkEnabled\">Seven-and-a-half years later, the notorious online pest has a job &#8230;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Here&#8217;s the thing: Donald J. Trump&#8217;s idea of <em>successful<\/em> is far different from most everyone else&#8217;s. The key is in the labeling of Grennell as an <em>Internet Troll<\/em>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>In\u00a0<a title=\"Internet slang\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Internet_slang\">Internet slang<\/a>, a\u00a0<b>troll<\/b>\u00a0is a person who starts quarrels or upsets people on the\u00a0<a title=\"Internet\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Internet\">Internet<\/a>\u00a0to distract and sow discord by posting inflammatory and digressive,<sup id=\"cite_ref-1\" class=\"reference\"><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Internet_troll#cite_note-1\">[1]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0<a class=\"extiw\" title=\"wikt:extraneous\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/extraneous#Adjective\">extraneous<\/a>, or\u00a0<a class=\"mw-redirect\" title=\"Off-topic\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Off-topic\">off-topic<\/a>\u00a0messages in an\u00a0<a title=\"Online community\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Online_community\">online community<\/a>\u00a0(such as a\u00a0<a class=\"mw-redirect\" title=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Newsgroup\">newsgroup<\/a>,\u00a0<a title=\"Internet forum\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Internet_forum\">forum<\/a>,\u00a0<a title=\"Chat room\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Chat_room\">chat room<\/a>, or blog) with the\u00a0<a class=\"mw-redirect\" title=\"Bullying culture\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Bullying_culture\">intent of provoking<\/a>\u00a0readers into displaying\u00a0<a title=\"Emotion\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Emotion\">emotional<\/a>\u00a0responses<sup id=\"cite_ref-PCMAG_def_2-0\" class=\"reference\"><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Internet_troll#cite_note-PCMAG_def-2\">[2]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0and normalizing tangential discussion,<sup id=\"cite_ref-IUKB_def_3-0\" class=\"reference\"><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Internet_troll#cite_note-IUKB_def-3\">[3]<\/a><\/sup> whether for the troll&#8217;s amusement or a specific gain.\u00a0<em>[<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Internet_troll\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Wikipedia<\/strong><\/a>]<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>For Trump, &#8220;losing,&#8221; like McCain supposedly did, is the anchor that will sink you. So long as you can slither out of every difficulty, you&#8217;re a winner, and that&#8217;s all he cares about.<\/p>\n<p>And that&#8217;s not acceptable in any sector of society, frankly speaking. As a diplomat in Germany, he could do little damaged in his incompetency.<\/p>\n<p>As the replacement for Dan Coates, former Director of National Intelligence? I suppose it&#8217;ll depend on how well the bureaucracy in the various intelligence agencies can ward him off.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is today&#8217;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 \u2026 <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2020\/02\/20\/but-hes-a-success\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","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-27723","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\/27723","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=27723"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27723\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27724,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27723\/revisions\/27724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}