Dana Milbank: Trump era ushers in the triumph of the bootlicker
Yup--if you lick trumps boots, you can keep your job.
Dana Milbank: Trump era ushers in the triumph of the bootlicker
http://host.madison.com/wsj/opinion/column/dana-milbank-trump-era-ushers-in-the-triumph-of-the/article_67533a4a-997d-5d52-8c9f-d05872c6d997.html
12 hrs ago
WASHINGTON .........................................
It is the triumph of the bootlicker.
Six months ago, Lawrence H. Summers, a former treasury secretary, said “Mnuchin may be the greatest sycophant in Cabinet history.”
There is no longer need for a qualifier.
This is the key to survival in the administration — not policy chops, political finesse or ethical behavior. Capacity to flatter the boss invariably tops ability. With few exceptions, Trump has tolerated unseemly entitlement — government jets, lavish office furnishings, help for family members, missing financial disclosures — from those who are obsequious.
David Shulkin, who contradicted Trump after Charlottesville by expressing his outrage at the Nazis, was sacked as veterans affairs secretary despite success at the agency, while the loyal Scott Pruitt at the Environmental Protection Agency, whose $43,000 phone booth and $50-per-night condo from a lobbyist are more dubious than anything Shulkin was accused of, so far retains Trump’s confidence.
Trump proposes to replace Shulkin with the White House doctor, who has few qualifications beyond rhapsodizing about the president’s “incredible” health.
By this standard, Mnuchin has guaranteed employment.
A few weeks ago, on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” he gamely defended Trump calling an African-American congresswoman “a low-IQ individual.” Mnuchin explained that “the president likes making funny names.”
The treasury secretary weighed in on ABC News about Trump’s attack on “son of a bitch” NFL players who kneel during the national anthem, saying, “I think the president can use whatever language he wants to use.”
Two weeks ago, on Fox News, Mnuchin defended Trump’s call for Congress to give him a line-item veto, even when told the Supreme Court had ruled it unconstitutional. “Well,” Mnuchin said, “Congress could pass a rule, OK, that allows them to do it.”
Not OK.
Such performances have allowed Mnuchin to weather all trials: failing to disclose $100 million in real estate assets before his confirmation, as well as his directorship of a Cayman Islands holding corporation; his violation of ethics rules in telling people to “send your kids to Lego Batman,” a movie he produced; Mnuchin inquiring about a government jet for his European honeymoon; his wife, Louise Linton, posting a photo tagging designers she was wearing as she disembarked from a government plane, on a trip during which they viewed the solar eclipse; Linton, dismissing a critic by saying, “Have you given more to the economy than me and my husband?”
He has been variously imperious and bumbling at treasury, telling bankers “you should all thank me for your bank stocks doing better,” directing lawmakers skeptical about a spending bill to “vote for it for me,” and sending U.S. currency to a three-year low with an offhand comment that “a weaker dollar is good for us.”
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