Sean Spicer wrote a very bad book about his brief role as Mouth of Sauron at the Trump White House. Jonathan Karl’s review in the Wall Street Journal was unkind:
Mr. Spicer’s book is much like his tenure as press secretary: short, littered with inaccuracies and offering up one consistent theme: Mr. Trump can do no wrong. Mr. Spicer has not been well served by the book’s fact checkers and copy editors. He refers to the author of the infamous Trump dossier as “Michael Steele,” who is in truth the former chairman of the Republican National Committee, not the British ex-spy Christopher Steele. He recounts a reporter asking Mr. Obama a question at a White House press conference in 1999, a decade before Mr. Obama was elected.
But, regardless of how terrible and inaccurate the book is, Spicer must go on a book tour to promote it. He appeared on the BBC for that purpose. BBC Newsnight’s Emily Maitlis wasn’t having any of Sean Spicer’s lying bullshit:
BBC interviewer to Sean Spicer: "You have corrupted discourse for the entire world by going along with these lies" pic.twitter.com/HsvNLajwQu
— Robert Maguire (@RobertMaguire_) July 24, 2018
Ms. Maitlis set the standard for how the Trump people should be dealt with by every journalist worthy of the title when the minions, henchwomen and assorted goons set out on their come-back tours. My guess is that Sarah Huckabee Sanders will be on deck next. I wonder what she’ll call her book? “Dinner Denied: A Conservative Call for Civility,” maybe.
But back to Spicer. In addition to releasing a book through a wingnut outlet, Regnery Publishing, which allegedly arranges bulk orders to inflate its authors’ sales numbers while stiffing them on royalties, Spicer is working for a Trump PAC. Spicer will probably ride the wingnut gravy train the rest of his life, but having beclowned himself so thoroughly, his seat won’t be in the club car.
In other Shit Midas-fallout that has not been sufficiently gloated about on this here blog, Princess Complicity shuttered her fashion brand yesterday, allegedly to focus more on her no-show job at the White House:
NEW YORK — Ivanka Trump is shutting down her fashion line of dresses, shoes and handbags that became a target of political boycotts and spurred concerns about conflicts of interest after her father was elected.
The president’s daughter said in a statement she made the decision so she could focus more on work as a White House adviser. She had stepped away from the day-to-day management of her company when she joined President Donald Trump’s administration.
“After 17 months in Washington, I do not know when or if I will ever return to the business, but I do know that my focus for the foreseeable future will be the work I am doing here in Washington,” she said. She called the move the “only fair outcome for my team and partners.”
Sales were down 55% according to retail data. Of linking the Trump brand to a fashion empire, Ivanka Trump once told the NYT, “We’re a family company. We’re a family brand. I made a specific choice not to call my collection Ivanka. There’s so much value in the Trump name.”
That was in 2013. Five years later, it turns out that a “family brand” associated with baby-jailing, white supremacist, Russian puppet demagoguery isn’t a marketplace winner. Oh well. Maybe Walmart will let her revive her knock-off bag and shoes operation to sell cheap, foreign sweatshop-made crap to the rubes at a less lofty markup once daddy’s administration finally implodes. Maybe.
I hope for justice but, Manafort excepted, I am skeptical of ever seeing the top strata of the Trumposphere — let alone Trump himself — take the perp walks they so richly deserve. But I do think it’s possible they’ll have a metaphorical “T” tattooed on their foreheads for the rest of their lives to signal the shame of having enabled the most criminal, corrupt, incompetent and loathsome administration in American history. And I believe they’ll rue the day Trump was elected almost as keenly as we do.
It won’t be enough, but it’s something. Open thread.