It Is Hard To Be Intimidated By Ridiculousness

More: Per Ari Fleischer, who served as press secretary for President George W. Bush, the combative "press conference" had to have been Trump's idea. Or to put it another way, Trump ordered Spicer to go out there and lie, and apparently Spicer doesn't have standing to say, Gee, Mr. President, I'm not sure that's such a good idea.

This is called a statement you're told to make by the President.  And you know the President is watching.

— Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) January 21, 2017

Now consider two of Trump's tweets this morning: First this:

Watched protests yesterday but was under the impression that we just had an election! Why didn't these people vote? Celebs hurt cause badly.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 22, 2017

Then, less than 2 hours later, this:

Peaceful protests are a hallmark of our democracy. Even if I don't always agree, I recognize the rights of people to express their views.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 22, 2017

Clearly someone convinced Trump to tone it down a bit, at least in one tweet. My guess: SIL Jared Kushner.

Final thought, at least for now: Is there any significance to the fact that Trump was using his personal Twitter account (@realDonaldTrump) instead of the official one (@POTUS)?

Original post:
It's been a bad first 48 hours for the Trump administration on many levels and it feels like it's going to be a long, long 4 years. I like Josh Marshall's take on it, specifically referring to press secretary Sean Spicer's strange press conference that wasn't really a press conference:

On the one hand it is chilling, bizarre, un-American to see the President's spokesman begin the term excoriating and threatening the press, telling demonstrable lies, speaking with a palpable rage in his voice. On the other, the President and his toadies are on the second day almost vanishingly small. They are embarrassing themselves. They look silly. They look ridiculous. It is hard to be intimidated by ridiculousness. I suspect this will be the abiding duality of the Trump presidency. (Read more from Marshall at Talking Points Memo.) 

Note that this was written Saturday night, before Kellyanne Conway (dressed in regular clothes this time) went on Meet The Press to explain that Spicer was utilizing "alternate facts."