Which is why it was so painful to watch Spicer get shouted at and abused and owned on Twitter by people who know all too well that what he was trying to do is impossible. It doesn’t help that vast swathes of the media are preening, self-congratulatory, childish, and obsessed with procedural trivialities. Is finally getting to the bottom of “covfefe” the reason we have a free and independent press under the First Amendment in this country? Why would you make a fuss about the fact that Spicer put on makeup before going on television — is this a sinister denial of your hoary liberties or just adolescent bullying?
A less decent, but more qualified, press secretary would say things a lot harsher than “Sit down and raise your hand like a big boy” in response to the daily inanities proffered in the West Wing theater. Spicer should be happy that he quit. He made the right decision by resigning, but it had nothing to do with Scaramucci, dreadful as it might have been to work under a man for whom threats of murder are routine subjects of telephone conversation. Mooch was typical of the Trump administration, not an outlier. He was its barely concealed id; Spicer was the superego. But Trump doesn’t seem to require a conscience, only mean-spirited yes men.
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