Madeleine Westerhout, who left her White House job suddenly on Thursday as President Trump’s personal assistant, was fired after bragging to reporters that she had a better relationship with Trump than his own daughters, Ivanka and Tiffany Trump, and that the president did not like being in pictures with Tiffany because he perceived her as overweight.
The critical comments happened at an off-the-record dinner, according to two people familiar with the matter, that Westerhout and deputy White House press secretary Hogan Gidley held earlier this month with reporters who were covering Trump’s vacation at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey.This is about Tiffany? Yeesh. She's the one Trump people like.
Westerhout also jokingly told the journalists that Trump couldn’t pick Tiffany out of a crowd, said one of the people. “She had a couple drinks and in an uncharacteristically unguarded moment, she opened up to the reporters,” the person said.
My guess is that this dismissal has been brewing for a while, and that the "Tiffany thing" was not so much a reason as an excuse. Josh Marshall has the most pointed take on the situation:
Here’s a paragraph from the Times piece yesterday breaking this story.Is it really? Time to acknowledge a fact that "woke" writers prefer not to mention: Madeleine Westerhout is very attractive. She probably got the gig for that reason. He openly referred to her as "My beautiful beauty."
Ms. Westerhout, a former Republican National Committee aide who also worked for Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign, reportedly cried on election night because she was upset over Mr. Trump’s victory. As such, the president at first viewed her warily, as a late convert to his cause who could not be trusted.In the Trump world and with the kind of access journalism it spawns, I never know quite what to believe, quite what to take at face value. But if this is more or less accurate it’s just astounding.
In November, Westerhout not only wasn’t a Trump loyalist she was apparently driven to tears when she learned he’d be President. She’d worked for the RNC and the Romney campaign. So she’s a professional Republican. But she holds Trump in such contempt that she still was driven to tears when he, the Republican nominee, won the presidency over Hillary Clinton?
Trump “viewed her warily”?
Well, I’d say Trump had pretty good reason. I’d view her pretty warily if I were Trump too. It’s flabbergasting that she ever got such a position.
When I first saw the photo above, I immediately flashed on Hitch and Tippi. I believe that Trump saw this woman and reacted the way he has always reacted to beauty: I want that.
Over time, Westerhouse no doubt made her position very clear: What you want and what you're getting are two different things. This is the sort of conversation that men and women often have very indirectly. Trump may never have made an explicit move, and Westerhout may never have had to make an explicit counter-move. Even for someone as thickheaded and Id-diven as Der Donald, body language and demeanor can send the message very effectively: Sorry. Not you. Not a chance.
When an egomaniac is rejected, resentment starts to boil.
To repeat: I think that the "Tiffany thing" was not so much a reason as an excuse.
Russia tweets. Let's turn to a more important topic. Just how thoroughly has Russia commandeered Twitter? This project has come up with some frightening numbers.
Compiled and published by Professors Darren Linvill and Patrick Warren with FiveThirtyEight, these tweets are all from the Internet Research Agency – the so-called troll factory run by the Russian government to shape American politics. Search for tweets, hashtags, or dates that interest you, and see first-hand evidence of a Russian foreign influence operation.This is why I became so frustrated while listening to this chat between Ezra Klein and writer Jia Tolentino. After many displays of wit and erudition, Tolentino finally arrives at her basic point: People using social media should simply be nicer to each other.
The data they've released contains nearly 3 million tweets, posted by thousands of different accounts.
That's like asking the Terminator to be nicer. It's a machine. You can't reason with it. You can't debate it. You can't lower your voice and expect the machine to do likewise. And even when you are not interacting with a machine, machinery controls the overall temperature of that environment.
The only sane course of action is to leave that environment.
7 comments:
My theory about being nice, or respectful on the internet is that primarily women were forced to not use their real names when posting so they could avoid harassment related to work, social and their local community.
Whereas men more often would use their real names.
The third player in this game were primarily the men (but some women as well) who were able to take their creepy bathroom etchings and transplant them to other human beings in a directed yet anonymous fashion via social media.
The result in my opinion was an abyss of complementary comments or praise for pretty much anything. that was generated politically, unless people were of the exact same ilk.
Now flower in bots and what a mess we have. I can recall years ago finding thread after thread with hostile anti Clinton comments and NO ONE to respond back, except me.
I agree, being nice and considerate is important.
"I agree, being nice and considerate is important."
Oh YEAH? Well, SCREW YOU!!!!
Just kidding, Alessandro.
Seriously, I recall as well the dark days of 2008, when every liberal blog, large or tiny, was inundated with auto-generated ClintonHate. The same message would appear on various blogs, posted under different names.
It belatedly dawned on me that we weren't dealing with people. This was mechanized. The message: If you support Hillary, stay off the internet.
Later, I learned that David Axelrod pioneered the use of bots for political purposes.
I always said that Obama’s attacks on Hillary were the same attacks that Trump used on her. Trolls, bots, Russians, robots, god only knows what or who else. I think the Russians helping Trump was NOT their first rodeo in a big time election. Just saying....... never mentioned but my antenna makes me suspicious.
Russians aren't so much innovators as imitators, I suspect they studied the media ratfuckery on Al Gore then whoever did the trolling on daily kos and other media platforms against Hillary 2008 and tweaked it.
The question is why the Clintons never learned to adapt. Using the same dinosaur tactics they used in 2008 is puzzling.
The Clintons never did adapt. The Clinton Foundation has over 2000 paid employees all making modest salaries. They must have been instructed to not post online defending the Clintons to avoid having the Clinton Foundation be accused of shilling for Hillary Clinton.
The Clinton hate has now solidified. Easily 40% of the population thinks the Clintons are bad people. The youtube videos, even if untrue, expands the damage year after year.
On witnessing the power of the right-wing propaganda machine, I begin to understand why leftists in what was once called "the Third World" are tempted to exercise authoritarian control of the media when they manage to gain power.
Post a Comment