Every day a new horrible piece of news reaches us via The Twittler transition team. (Transition to what, I ask? From good governance to an especially surreal and stupid video game?)
Almost impossible to understand. It’s nearly a form of reverse genius.
Are these characters plotting in private? Did Bannon (who is unquestionably running this Gothic theatrical) throw down a challenge to his minions: “I want the enemy to be punched with a new outrage every day. I want to drive them crazy! So anyone who provides the worst possible candidate for a staff or Cabinet position will get…one of these yummy and colorful lollipops! Except not the red ones because those are my faves and, screw you, I’m the dictator so I get to seize any property I covet.”
Leading to an eager Bannonite crying,”Führer, I’ve got an idea for one-upping the outrage we created the other day over Flynn’s appointment and his being obviously psychotic!”
We have ample evidence that each day of post-transition will be just as bad.
It’s my conspiracy theory that Bannon is digging in the dirt just to fling it in our faces, so he can hear us scream.
[SCREAM: I HATE YOUR GUTS I HATE YOU I SWEAR VENGEANCE, yadda yadda yadda.]
One good thing, though: the Horror may have deleted from our memory banks two really dumb clichés. No longer will you hear anyone say, “Well, it can’t get any worse than this.” Or “tomorrow is a brighter day.”
We all accept it will get worse than this. And tomorrow it’ll be tornadoes that level every red voting district in Wisconsin, and earthquakes in Oklahoma from all the fracking, and ice storms in Miami, and polar bears rampaging in Missouri.
Every day it will get worse than this.
Below you will find Publisher’s Marketplace’s version of one of those “it will get worse” stories. You’ll notice that since The Twittler has been defined most perfectly by David Remnick as, “The mouth opens and the lies pour out,” The Twittler administration apparently decided to go all in with the “We’re all liars” trope. (Should “We’re all liars” be a meme-type hashtag?) (What is a “meme-type hashtag?”):
Trump National Security Pick Crowley’s 2012 Book “Plagiarized Large Sections”
Conservative author and former Fox News contributor Monica Crowley, who has been picked for a leading national security communications role by the Trump administration, plagiarized upwards of 50 sections of her 2012 book What the (Bleep) Just Happened, according to CNN’s KFile.
Among those from whom Crowley appears to have lifted material based on KFile’s investigation include National Review writers Andrew C. McCarthy and Rich Lowry, Michelle Malkin, conservative economist Stephen Moore, Karl Rove, and Ramesh Ponnuru of Bloomberg View. Crowley “also lifted word-for-word phrases from the Associated Press, the New York Times, Politico, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, the BBC, and Yahoo News.” Crowley was previously accused of plagiarism in 1999, when a WSJ column of hers was markedly similar to a 1998 article in Commentary. (Crowley denied the plagiarism charge at the time.)
A spokeswoman for Harper said Sunday that the company has “no comment at this time. We are looking into the matter.” Crowley’s book was published by Broadside Books, a conservative-oriented imprint that has effectively disbanded following editorial director Adam Bellow’s departure for St. Martin’s last fall. In 2013 Broadside did publish a paperback edition of Crowley’s book, updated and bearing a slightly different title, What The (Bleep) Just Happened…Again?, though Harper did not address questions as to whether the revisions were to keep up with the 2012 election results, as was announced at the time, or to quietly address any known plagiarism issues at the time.
The Trump administration transition team stood by Crowley in a statement to KFile Saturday. “Monica’s exceptional insight and thoughtful work on how to turn this country around is exactly why she will be serving in the Administration. HarperCollins [part of Rupert Murdoch’s empire]— one of the largest and most respected publishers in the world — published her book which has become a national best-seller. Any attempt to discredit Monica is nothing more than a politically motivated attack that seeks to distract from the real issues facing this country.” While the book did make some bestseller lists right after publication in 2012, Nielsen Bookscan shows total lifetime hardcover sales of under 21,000 print units.
How many false statements can we count from that Twittler-approved quote? So appropriate, given Crowley’s record.
If you were about to be president, isn’t this inveterate plagiarizer precisely who you’d want as your national security communications advisor? Because that’s someone who absolute needs to be trusted to communicate (fake) facts vital to our national security. Right?
O.K., Bannon, fuck you. That’s my outrage for today. Whadda ya going to do for tomorrow, punk?