Whether you are hiding in your panic room or just popping Xanax every 15 minutes, the one thing we can all say about the current state of affairs is that we are all living in “historic” times. Every week or two we are faced with news that President Trump has reached a new low in approval from the American public, just marked the shortest tenure of a national security adviser (who should also probably be in a military prison), or he’s just acting historically unhinged. The Washington Post points out that Sean Spicer’s announcement today that he is resigning his position as the president’s spokesman makes his tenure the new historic low-water mark.
But Spicer's resignation on Friday means his run as the president's spokesman was among the briefest ever. Each of the five men who held the position for less time than Spicer had his term truncated by special circumstances.
Some of those “special circumstances” include:
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Jerald terHorst (30 days) was Gerald Ford's pick after Richard Nixon resigned in 1974. When Ford pardoned Nixon for all Watergate-related crimes, terHorst quit in protest.
James Brady (69 days) was shot in the head during an assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan in 1981. He survived but never returned to the post.
The one to remember is that Donald Trump didn’t usher in these historic lows: Republican Party heads Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan did when they scuttled the Constitution, stole a Supreme Court seat, and subsequently decided to create and pass legislation that only they get to discuss.