Posted on 06/13/2017 6:15:51 AM PDT by shortstop
It smelled like North Korea.
Yesterday, at the “cabinet meeting,” as some of the most powerful people on earth went around the table competing to see who could kiss their boss’s ass the most lavishly.
It smelled like those propaganda videos that come out of North Korea, where insane smiles and frenetic clapping break out every time the nut job with the hairdo has a bowel movement.
By the time the meeting at the White House got to the chief of staff talking about being “blessed,” it had taken on the air of worship. It was a gimme to the late-night comics, an exercise in mockable stupidity. One more knock on a horribly battered administration.
And this one we did to ourselves.
I saw “we” because I am a Trump supporter and a Trump voter. Not yet five months in, I think the Trump Administration has done much good. From the Supreme Court to the cabinet appointments, from the executive orders to the new relations with Europe and the Muslim world, I’m liking where this president is going.
But I’m not liking how he’s getting there.
And in the face of a slow-motion progressive coup, in an administration being depicted in a partisan press as a train wreck, many of our wounds are self-inflicted. And most of those wounds arise from a president who knows no bounds.
A president who can’t be told “no,” who can’t effectively be given counsel.
And that leads to spectacles like the cabinet meeting.
Instead of giving people confidence in the nation’s senior leadership, it was an almost Stalinist display of obsequiousness. It was worship of the Dear Leader, akin to the demigod homage paid people like Mao and Castro and Hitler.
And Jim Jones.
It was the sort of thing that would make one imbalanced guy happy, but leave 321 million normal Americans scratching their heads. Or laughing. Or muttering, “We’re screwed” under their breaths.
And it points out two weaknesses – Donald Trump must like that sort of thing, and nobody can tell Donald Trump how stupid and damaging such displays are. That means his instincts are flawed – at least when it comes to ego – and no one in his circle has the stones to stand up to him and save him from himself.
Not his son-in-law, not his chief of staff, not his vice president, not even the secretary of State, who usually seems to be the grownup in the room.
How could a White House operation not know that such a fawning display would backfire, and how could a White House operation not keep it from happening?
Trump needs a peer. Somebody who can take his lips off the presidential backside long enough to give him unflinching advice, especially when it may not be what Trump wants to hear. The most successful leaders have many such people; the most brittle leaders have nobody. A network of strong and independent minds backstopping and debating – that’s what a cabinet is supposed to be, that’s who presidential advisers are supposed to be.
But that’s not what we saw yesterday.
Instead we saw a roomful of people from various walks and disciplines, people of extraordinary achievement and leadership in their own right, reduced to a bowing and scraping we would expect from a royal court, not a Republic of equals. Kowtowing is not the American way. Certainly, there is a deference to leadership, and everybody knows who’s at the top of the organization chart, but no man is lifted up by the bowing down of another, and no secure leader requires the debasement of his followers.
Events like the cabinet meeting raise the fear that Trump’s adult life – lived in a privately held business where his word was law – may have given him a god complex, some belief that his greatness is demonstrated by the quacking praise of sycophants. It makes you fear that he is socially retarded, that he may be the world’s oldest spoiled child.
I hope not.
For the sake of the agenda I want Trump to advance, for the good of our country and the world, I hope not. I hope that these kinks can be worked out.
And I hope that Trump has read enough history and organizational management to know that fawning courtiers are always scheming courtiers, that dysfunction at the head fosters dysfunction throughout. A roomful of advisers eager to tell you how good you are is a roomful of advisers who will lie to you about other things, too. The people who smile at your face are the ones who stab you in the back.
And I hope that Trump and his White House can soon learn that displays like that cabinet meeting ass-kissing session are as lethal to public support as anything the Democrats and news media are throwing at them.
I hope they realize that if you shoot yourself in the foot often enough, the wounds can prove politically fatal.
...and the slow walking GOP Senate taking so much time to approve the cabinet.
Well I guess the next time the cabinet members should all show up drunk and have a soccer hooligan brawl.
“I have a tough time disagreeing with Lonsberry’s opinion. Whether it would be fatal remains to be seen.”
You are being sarcastic, I hope. Ever notice the passionate fawning over Obama by the MSM, democrat politicians, Hollywood swamp dwellers, or the orgasm Chris Matthews admitted to when he listened to Obama?
Even when Comey testified, it looked like blooming homosexual desire among most of the senators toward Comey. I noticed Tom Cotton was the only one who did not engage in that kind of foreplay.
A school teacher has had her first graders sing a tribute to trump and his agenda...
Now that would smack of north Koreanism
Mmm mmm mmm
Lonsberry is a pearl clutcher if he believes this nonsense.
This was the first meeting of the COMPLETE Cabinet, and with Cabinet people who are accomplished people in their fields who are not yes-men political hacks.
Maybe these folks were expressing sincere beliefs.
How refreshing.
Trump is doing an amazing job on all fronts compared to the usurper we had for 8 years.
Ditto
Lonsberry needs to get a life, or a job with the WaPo.
In the first place, Trump's cabinet has been in place since late April. In the second place, Republicans control the committees and their schedule, and have 52 votes in the Senate for confirming. Cabinet appointees can't be filibustered. This day could have come a lot earlier had they wanted.
What cabinet meeting?
Did I miss something?
Is this the first ‘official’ cabinet meeting after the excruciatingly slow appointment process with the democrats dragging their feet on every nominee until the very last second?
If so, then I could forgive a little pomp-and-circumstance, but that better be the end of it.
Are cabinet meetings always broadcast?
It appears you post only from that site.
You #nevertrumpers never quit. Forget it. Cruz is never going to be POTUS.
I see a lot of disagreement here but shortstop is usually full of awesome.
Stop it with the knee-jerk “I don’t agree with this article so he must be an asshole” reactions (which are getting way too common here..)
I can see A POINT, even if I don’t agree with it 100%. AND the main focus of the story should have been OMIGOD FIVE MONTHS THE DEMOCRATS OBSTRUCTED THIS VERY FIRST CABINET MEETING!!!!
(way more important)
Beyond silly. Rush commented on this. These guys LOVE Trump cuz he gives them latitude & expects tesults.
Some people criticize anything.
No it didn’t.
I saw a team of people willing to work together and have a good time. Sure it was a propaganda play - so what? That’s all we got for the last 8 years and this same “conservative” blogger (who is supposedly so concerned) would’ve been oohing and aahing about how personable,likable and such a display of manly leadership Obama demonstrates.
Baloney.
Bob Lonsberry — mentally ill
I watched it too. There were a few toasting his praises, but most of them spoke optimistically about what they were accomplishing. Mike Pence always sings Trump’s praises, did anyone stop to think that maybe he is grateful to serve under a president that allows him to actually do good for the country?
Good grief...They were being loyal....It was a spoof and everyone is too stupid to catch it.
Study the construction of a skyscraper. No stupid person could oversee the construction of just one. Trump has done many of them. Most people in Congress could not organization the design and construction of a nice bird house. The problem Washington has with Trump is that he is many times smarter than they are.
This is a bullsh*t article. Period.
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