Can we talk about this? Can we talk about how this is, apparently, according to the words on the page, an official f--king statement from the "president of the United States."
Statement from the President of the United States
Steve Bannon has nothing to do with me or my Presidency. When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind. Steve was a staffer who worked for me after I had already won the nomination by defeating seventeen candidates, often described as the most talented field ever assembled in the Republican party.
See that up there? That underlined part? Issued by Sarah Huckabee Sanders herself? This is an actual honest-to-God thing that happened, apparently. There is now an official statement issued from the White House devoted entirely to insulting Steve Bannon. This apparently required an actual, official statement. It went through whatever “channels” these buffoons have mustered.
The White House has an entire staff devoted to communications strategy. By gum, they have offices and meetings and their own pencils and everything. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, aka Not Sean Spicer, stands up in front of a podium and says things. In the background, rows of crack strategists and political geniuses hash these things out in order to make each sitting president look like they know what the hell they are doing, on any given day.
And the result of all of that infrastructure is an official “Statement from the President of the United States” declaring that an ex-top-staffer "lost his mind" and "has nothing to do with me or my Presidency."
It is an official—official, mind you—statement from the U.S. "president." And at the very best, the entire White House communications team seems maybe to have managed to put the man's on-the-toilet rant through a spellchecker before tossing it out as official statement. At. Best.
It is like the richest child in a private grade school setting up a podium during recess one day to call his ex-best-friend a poopiehead, and the goddamn principal's office was somehow contractually obligated to send out an official letter to all the other parents informing them of little Billy's new poopiehead status. Sorry, everybody, but if Timmy says so then our hands are tied.
And here is the thing: Should we be, in some sense, happy about this? Should we be relieved, because no matter how f--king insane a rubber-nosed horn-honking White House slapfight on official government stationary might seem, at least it took this orange lunatic's mind temporarily off his weekend obsession, starting a nuclear war? Oh thank God, at least now he's obsessed with his own ex-staff, that ought to preoccupy him for a day or two?
What. The Hell. Is even going on at this point? Does the White House staff need to drug this man to maintain order? Is there anyone remaining on his staff who has even the slightest sliver of power to curtail his worst instincts? Is there anyone, anywhere in the White House, who still considers themselves to have a reputation to protect? Are you going to have to deliver him to his first State of the Union speech in a straitjacket?
Anyone at all in the White House want to spill the beans on this one? Are you all already drugging him, and this is the best that you can do? Did he come home from Mar-a-Lago with an entire suitcase full of cocaine and the executive branch of government will simply be reduced to this dreck until the man runs out again? Was his original toilet rant even worse, and you actually did manage to polish the turd up a bit before Sarah Huckabee Sanders grabbed it with oven mitts and tossed it into the official White House communications feed?