Sarah Huckabee Sanders: Spin Wizard

Look, I don't want to tell Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders how to spin the amoral shit show that is the Trump administration, but maybe bragging about how many people voted for him isn't the way to go? Because most of us didn't.

Ok, I guess I do want to tell her how to spin the shit show. Here goes: maybe stop
  lying to us? That's a big one. Oh, and also, stop insulting our intelligence.
It would be great if you knocked that off too. Let's see, what else...

You have to be pretty objectionable
for the wait staff to prefer throwing you
out to simply spiting in your meal.

Anyway, here's what she said in response to the anonymous source who wrote an op-ed for the New York Times about-huh? Yeah, we'll get to that in a minute, but first the Press Secretary:

"Nearly 62 million people voted for President Donald J. Trump in 2016, earning him 306 Electoral College votes-versus 232 for his opponent. None of them voted for a gutless anonymous source to the failing New York Times."

-Sarah Huckabee Sanders demonstrating

why no one wants her in their restaurant

Above: someone nearly sixty-six
million Americans voted for. I think
she's still on her book tour now.

Well, to her credit, Huckabee Sanders actually underestimated the number of Trump voters, it was, in fact, closer to sixty-three million, but that's still nearly three million fewer than voted for Hillary Clinton. Yeah, three million people whom the President insists are alternately illegal voters or leprechauns. And no, Huckabee Sanders does have a point, nobody voted for a gutless anonymous source, but then that gutless anonymous source didn't win the popular vote either so in many ways the administration should probably shut up about the election. Because again, most of us voted for Clinton.

Pictured: Pretty much this.

So what's with this gutless anonymous source? Well, according to the New York Times, the author of an op-ed asked that their identity be kept secret because it might jeopardize his or her job, which, no, it would absolutely jeopardize their job. In it, they explain that they, and other like-minded appointees within the administration, are working within the administration to mitigate the President's batshit crazy Presidenting. As much as possible, they're just letting him pretend to drive. They're Truman Show-ing the President.

Just to be clear, everything up to
now has essentially been Trump with
a muzzle. Let that sink in a bit.

This apparently lines up with Bob Woodward's book which describes officials as hiding letters and bills from the President before he can sign them and even straight-up countermanding and ignoring his orders. Which at first blush might sound a little, I don't know, treasony? The President certainly tweets as much. He later demanded, again via tweet, for the source to be turned over to the government for national security purposes. And I'm not a lawyer, but in addition to being a violation of the freedom of the press, this seems a bit outside the purview of a social media account. 

Pretty sure this doesn't constitute a warrant. Also, I don't think talking
to the press about the President's incompetence is a national security issue.

"That's us, the party of free minds and
free people and...sorry, I can't even..."

-Republicans

The author, themselves a Republican, explains that while Trump ran as a Republican candidate, he doesn't share any of the party's values like "free minds, free markets and free people." And ok, while I'm not sure I agree that the party that gave us Prop 8, intelligent design and Wall Street can really lay claim to any of those things, I do respect that he or she thinks that's what the GOP stands for and that they recognize that Trump is not on their team or anyone's team for that matter. Well, except team Angry Tweets.

"Where'd he get a pen? Whose
job was it to hide the pens?"

-One of the people

in this photograph

They describe the underlying cause as one of character which is a super-republicany way of saying what we've been saying all along: that he's a dangerously unqualified man-baby and should step down immediately.

"The root of the problem is the president's amorality. Anyone who works with him knows he is not moored to any discernible first principles that guide his decision making."

-Anonymous Op-Ed person,

saying what we're all thinking

Above: our grim future.

Anyway, I don't know what to think of all this. According to the op-ed, the officials involved don't want to go through the process of invoking the 25th amendment, but if he's as bananas as they say he is, and we all think he is, then why not? And if the officials are the thin, sane line between reason and Biff Tannen's 1985, isn't the author risking an internal search for the source and jeopardizing the dampening effect they have on the President's behavior? Does the fact that they wrote this piece offer us at least some hope that they feel there's enough support to protect them? 

Like I said, I don't know, but what I do know is that maybe harping on the 'gutless source' and bragging about Trump's technical win isn't the best way go. 

"Sure, he's grossly incompetent and so dangerous that his own staff feels that
they need to undermine him just to avoid catastrophe, but remember that
time he technically won the electoral college? That was great, wasn't it?"

-Sarah Huckabee Sanders: spin wizard