So Much Was On The Line...

Political scientist Jonathan Bernstein watched Donald's press conference about the coronavirus yesterday; here are his thoughts:

Believe it or not, I was all ready to praise Donald Trump this time. I really thought when he announced a press conference for Wednesday evening that he would manage to stick to a reasonable script, and there were very promising rumors that he was prepared to make an excellent choice for a new coronavirus czar.

Why? Because so much was on the line for Trump, and what he had to do was so easy. And while he hasn’t done it often, and I didn’t expect it to last much beyond the initial statement, he has at times managed to read a reasonable speech as written. Surely with the markets in turmoil, and the nation poised on the edge of panic, it would be obvious even to him that this was not the time for airing his grievances, repeating his usual insults, and rambling on like some leader of a banana republic who long since lost touch with reality.

Well, if you watched Trump’s press conference, you know I was dead wrong.

Yes, he used his usual juvenile nicknames and petty insults for the Democrats he’s going to have to work with. Yes, he blamed the stock market drop on Monday and Tuesday on — wait for it — the Democratic debate Tuesday night. Yes, he repeatedly praised himself for solving the problem (setting up a potential “Mission Accomplished” moment in the likely event the pandemic spreads in the U.S.) and had administration officials praise him as well. All entirely inappropriate and counterproductive.

But it was worse than that. He was at times barely coherent even for someone who knew what he was trying to say. I can’t imagine what it was like for the bulk of the nation, folks who only sometimes pay attention to politics but might have tuned in because they want to be reassured that the government is on top of the problem. He must have been almost completely incomprehensible to them, rambling on about how he had recently discovered that the flu can kill lots of people and referring in a totally oblique way to the budget requests he had made to Congress and their reaction. He occasionally said something that sort of made sense, but mostly? Not. Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel’s reaction was what I thought: “I found most of what he said incoherent.”

At no time over the course of the news conference did Trump supply evidence that he had any idea what he was talking about.

As for the substance? What Trump needed to do was to bring in someone in the White House to be in charge. Asking Vice President Mike Pence to do it wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t really a very good choice, either. I’m not very worried about Pence personally; a lot of liberals were taking shots at Pence for his poor record on public health when he was governor of Indiana, but what’s important here are political and bureaucratic skills, not subject matter expertise. Pence should have the skill set for the job.

So what’s the problem? First, I’m not thrilled with having a vice president lead the charge. For one thing, Pence has other responsibilities, so he won’t be the full-time coordinator that’s really needed. But the real problem is having a virus czar who can’t be fired and can’t credibly threaten to resign — or even to be seen having any separation between himself and the president at all. (That’s not really a Trump-specific issue; it’s inherent in the job of the vice presidency). That weakens Trump, and it also weakens Pence as czar. Someone brought in specifically for this job could have been given more authority and would have had a better chance to successfully steamroll the bureaucracy as needed.

Even worse was how Trump talked about him. Trump first buried the announcement at the end of his rambling opening statement. He also at one point said that HHS Secretary Alex Azar will still be leading the task force on the coronavirus. Then when asked he denied that Pence was a “czar” — an informal title, but one that connotes authority and the full backing of the president. And then he said everyone would report to Pence … but “they’ll also be reporting in some cases to both. I’ll be going to meetings quite a bit, depending on what they want to do, what message they want to get out.” In other words, Trump undercut Pence and muddled the lines of authority right in the announcement of Pence’s new responsibilities.

The reason someone is needed in the job is to break down the bureaucracy and coordinate the actions across agencies. For it to work, the czar (or whatever) needs full, clear, and consistent backing from the president, something that’s not in Trump’s nature to provide. But I really did think he could at least have pretended to do so in the original announcement. Nope.

In other words, Trump is still making the situation as risky for himself as possible — and risking real policy failure in responding to real danger to public health. (This is the article in its entirety.)

Donald's Governing Style

Is Donald Trump prepared to handle the coronavirus outbreak, if it does become a true emergency? Almost certainly not. In a post titled "Trump Laid the Groundwork for a Coronavirus Mess," and subtitled "The past three years are a lesson in how not to prepare for an emergency," Jonathan Bernstein explains why not:

It’s hard to imagine a president doing more to make himself vulnerable to damage from a viral outbreak than Donald Trump has over the last three years.

Yes, to himself. Also to the nation — that’s surely more important — but good presidents take care of themselves, too. Trump, for all his bluster, is putting himself at risk.

Let’s start with the obvious: Trump has almost never, since the very beginning of his presidency, spoken to the nation as a whole. His entire presidency is based on picking us-versus-them fights against various real and imagined enemies. Most presidents pretend to wait until the last minute to begin their re-election campaigns, using the time up until that point to attempt to represent the entire nation; Trump has been running for re-election from day one. (That is, when he’s not re-fighting his original election — something normal presidents almost never do.)

This divisiveness has helped Trump keep the intensity levels of his strongest supporters high. But it means a large part of the nation has tuned him out long ago.

Trump has also failed to forge any kind of working relationship with Democrats. To be sure, Democrats aren’t eager to work with the president. But Trump doesn’t even go through the motions of trying. So when a crisis does happen, he’s unlikely to produce a bipartisan response — which, importantly for the president, would yield shared blame if things were to go wrong.

Trump also has little regard for maintaining a reputation for honesty. This too has given him some advantages; most partisans (of both parties) tend to believe whatever same-party presidents say, and Trump doesn’t limit himself to the kind of stretching-the-truth spin that normal politicians employ. The downside, of course, is that only a fool would take Donald Trump’s word for anything — and everyone except his strongest supporters knows that.

Then there are his attacks on competent civil servants and even his own political appointees whose main fault is in following the rule of law. The deprofessionalization of the White House — and increasingly of the executive branch as well — may effectively reduce the number of people within the government willing to tell the president “no.” That’s a disaster in the making: Qualified professionals actually know how to do things, and they share expertise that makes it more likely the president will support policies that work.

What’s more, Trump doesn’t seem to pay much attention to governing unless an issue personally affects him, appears on a TV show he watches, or produces good applause lines at his rallies. Most of the rest seems to wind up in the hands of those within the administration whose bureaucratic skills allow them to build little fiefdoms in which to operate relatively unfettered.

Which is just an introduction to Trump’s budgets: It appears that for the most part he only engages on a few items, leaving acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney free to submit radical budgets asking for huge cuts to popular programs. Congress — Republicans very much included — ignore most of those cuts and consider the budgets dead on arrival. But Trump’s name is on them, which means that when he regularly (for example) demands large cuts in the agencies responsible for fighting epidemics, he’s vulnerable to political attacks.

Then there’s Trump’s knee-jerk resistance to emulating his predecessors, especially Barack Obama. While being open to new ways of doing things is a virtue for leaders, rejecting procedures that have worked in the past is, not surprisingly, risky. So Trump didn’t follow Barack Obama’s example by appointing someone in the White House with clear presidential backing to coordinate the government response to the coronavirus, which has already produced some utterly predictable misfires.

And don’t forget Trump’s shoot-from-the-hip style of communication. Normal presidents vet their public statements carefully; Trump says whatever is on his mind. This produces comments which experts find counterproductive. Indeed, one of the reasons to consult with experts before issuing statements is to avoid that kind of criticism, since the criticism itself makes things worse. That’s true even in the very unlikely case that Trump actually knows more than everyone else about the topic at hand, and of course it’s even more true if he’s relying on yahoos on cable television news rather than real experts.

Some of these things will actually make it harder for government policy to be effective. All of them increase the risks to Trump — both the risk of failed policy, and the chances that he’ll take the blame for anything that goes wrong. (This is the article in its entirety.)

Writing at Vox, Matthew Yglesias piles on:

Late last week, the US government overruled objections from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to put 14 coronavirus-infected Americans on an airplane with other healthy people.

The Trump administration swiftly leaked that the president was mad about this decision, and that nobody told him about it at the time. That could be true (or not — Trump and his team lie about things all the time). But even if it is true, it’s a confession of a stunning level of incompetence. The president is so checked out that he’s not in the loop even on critical decisions and is making excuses for himself after the fact.

Resolving interagency disagreements is his job. But Trump has never shown any real interest or aptitude for his job, something that used to loom large as an alarming aspect of his administration. That fear has faded into the background now that the US has gone years without many major domestic crises (the disasters and failed response in Puerto Rico being a big exception).

The Covid-19 outbreak, however, is a reminder that it remains a scary world and that the American government deals with a lot of important, complicated challenges that aren’t particularly ideological in nature. And we have no reason to believe the current president is up to the job. Trump not only hasn’t personally involved himself in the details of coronavirus response (apparently too busy pardoning former Celebrity Apprentice guests), he also hasn’t designated anyone to be in charge.

Infectious disease response necessarily involves balancing a range of considerations from throughout government public health agencies and critical aspects of economic and foreign policy. That’s why in fall 2014, the Obama administration appointed Ron Klain to serve as “Ebola czar” — a single official in charge of coordinating the response across the government. Trump has, so far, put nobody in charge, even though it’s already clear that because of the coronavirus’s effect on major Asian economies, the virus is going to be a bigger deal for Americans.

The Trump administration has asked Congress for $2.5 billion in emergency funding to fight the outbreak. But this is just a fig leaf. The reality is this administration keeps trying to — and at times does — slash funding for relevant government programs.

Trump keeps slashing pandemic response

In 2005, during the H1N5 bird flu scare, the US Agency for International Development ran a program called Predict to identify and research infectious diseases in animal populations in the developing world. Most new viruses that impact humans — apparently including the one causing the Covid-19 disease — emerge through this route, so investing in early research is the kind of thing that, at modest ongoing cost, served to reduce the likelihood of rare but catastrophic events.

The program was initiated under George W. Bush and continued through Barack Obama’s eight years in office; then, last fall the Trump administration shut it down.

That’s part of a broader pattern of actual and potential Trump efforts to shut down America’s ability to respond to pandemic disease.

Trump’s first budget proposal contained proposed cuts to the CDC that former Director Tom Frieden warned were “unsafe at any level of enactment.”

Congress mercifully didn’t agree to any such cuts, but as recently as February 11 — in the midst of the outbreak — Trump proposed huge cuts to both the CDC and the National Institutes of Health.

Perhaps because his budget officials were in the middle of proposing cuts to disease response, it’s only over this past weekend that they pivoted and started getting ready to ask for the additional money that coping with Covid-19 is clearly going to cost. But experts say they’re still lowballing it.

In early 2018, my colleague Julia Belluz argued that Trump was “setting up the US to botch a pandemic response” by, for example, forcing US government agencies to retreat from 39 of the 49 low-income countries they were working in on tasks like training disease detectives and building emergency operations centers.

Instead of taking such warnings to heart, later that year, “the Trump administration fired the government’s entire pandemic response chain of command, including the White House management infrastructure,” according to Laurie Garrett, a journalist and former senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations.

As it happens, the Covid-19 problem arose from China, rather than from Africa, where the programs Trump shut down were working. But now that containment in China seems to have failed, the next big global risk is that the virus will spread to countries that have weaker public health infrastructure, from which it will spread uncontrollably — exactly the sort of countries where Trump has scaled back assistance.

Meanwhile, to the extent Trump has done anything in the midst of the crisis, his predominant focus seems to have been on reassuring financial markets, rather than on addressing the public health issue. (Read more here.)

Finally, at least for now, consider this picture of Donald, taken today during his press conference in New Delhi, India: 

photo credit: AFP via Getty Images

His hair looks different, awful, really, with too much hair product on the side and some kind of weird part sticking out to the left of his ear. The skin around his chin and neck looks mottled, almost pockmarked. Mostly, however, I'm struck by his expression. He looks vacant and sheepish, almost childlike, as if he's making faces during a long event that he doesn't understand. I posted a similar picture, with similar comments, last February, click here to read that post.    

This Day In History, 1981: Charles And Diana Announce Their Engagement

It was 39 years ago:

#OnThisDay 1981: Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer announced their engagement to the world https://t.co/TtYDvzss7c

— BBC Archive (@BBCArchive) February 24, 2016

Four years ago, in an article at the Washington Post, writer Amy Argetsinger looked back:

Thirty-five years ago this week, the people of the United Kingdom rejoiced at the news that its bachelor Prince of Wales had finally found a bride. Charles was 32, and Lady Diana Spencer was 19, but, as he noted, "she'll be 20 soon and I was about that age" when he undertook his royal obligations.

The world swooned hard for this pairing; words like "fairytale" and "refreshing" got tossed around a lot. There was just the tiniest hint of a raised eyebrow in The Washington Post story of their engagement, written by London bureau chief Leonard Downie Jr., who a decade later would become The Post's executive editor:

Lady Diana is a strikingly attractive young woman with large blue-gray eyes and short blond hair. She wears little makeup or jewelry and has usually been seen in public wearing simple skirts, sweaters and low-heeled shoes. . . . He cuts a dashing figure, providing vicarious thrills for the average British bloke. He can fly a jet, repair a helicopter and jump from a plane with paratroopers. He has tried dangerous deep-sea diving and wind-surfing.  (Click here to read Downie's entire article.)

Downie noted that she had met the prince ("a 16th cousin once removed") on a pheasant shoot a couple years earlier when she was 16 and he was dating her older sister. "A lack of a romantic past is believed to be desirable by the royal family for a future queen," he wrote. (See image of that day's paper at the bottom of the post.)

It took another whole day for a Washington Post writer to say what he really thought. . .

That writer was Richard Cohen. Now a political columnist for The Post's op-ed page, he was then writing a column for the Metro section. And he had some thoughts about this matrimonial pairing. Oh yes, he did. We have republished it below.

This is Cohen's article, titled "Lady Diana, Beware: A Palace May Be a Jail":

One of the wonderful things about writing a newspaper column is that you get to say what you think about matters that are sometimes none of your business. It is in that vein that I bring up the impending marriage of Lady Diana Spencer to Charles, Prince of Wales, heir to the throne and all of that. I'm against it.

I should point out right away that I know neither Charles nor his intended and my only familiarity with the royal family is limited to a few moments spent peering through the gates of Buckingham Palace. But a few moments is all it takes to realize that what may look like a palace on the outside, can amount to a jail on the inside. Where Lady Diana is about to go, there is no exit.

I suppose I have the standard American ambivalence toward royalty. I sort of like it — over there. I like all royal families — English, Saudi Arabian, Jordanian (although not very much) and even those in exile. I find them essentially very amusing, diverting and silly, like a good operetta. But there is nothing amusing or silly when the conventions or royalty conspire to have a 32-year-old man marry a 19-year-old girl. If Charles were not a prince, he would be a dirty old man.

Okay, Charles is a bit young to be called that, but the fact remains that Lady Diana is nothing more than a kid. Take away the title of Lady and what you have is a teenager who is about to marry a man 13 years her senior. She knows little of the world. She has been boarded and tutored. She teaches kindergarten. She lives with three other women. She drives a little red car and is about to marry a man who can, as someone once wrote, "command a ship, pilot a helicopter, drive a tank, pilot a jet, parachute out of one and is fully trained as a frogman and commando." But for all of that, he will be a failure as both man and monarch if he can not coax an heir from his bride. They are both trapped in their roles.

Hers, though, is the real trap. She is about to enter a life of cutting ribbons, sitting with legs crossed at the ankles and, God and passion willing, producing heirs to the throne. You could train a horse to do much of this, but a horse, it goes without saying, would not have to suffer the glare of endless publicity. It is Lady Diana's fate to live in a nation that has the most rapacious and boorish press imaginable — a columnist in every car, a photographer behind every potty and the man from the Daily Mail crashing through the skylight.

It is this press, in fact, that has all but insisted that the new queen be what only one previous queen remained, and then only in legend — a virgin. There is no room for scandal here. This is no place for women who have pasts — who are, in a true sense, women. Those who have been linked to Charles (UPI says there have been 40) have been chased and investigated and photographed. Their lovers have been induced to come clean, the gossips to gossip. In one case, a woman confessed that her husband left her for a woman who was even then, in fact or fancy, linked with the Bonnie Prince. With a press like that, it is a wonder he stayed bonnie.

So what we had was a nation embarked on some sort of search for a child bride — for a virgin. It is almost medieval, a true return to the old days. But the upholder of conventional morality is no longer the Church, it is the press and the Bulls are not papal, they are journalistic. The only woman to qualify, the only woman who could marry the future king, is a woman virtually without a past. No mature woman, no woman of experience who had lived out in the world alone, who had had a career, could possibly be considered. She might have. . . God forbid. . . .

But a woman so young, so inexperienced, so unworldly is not prepared to decide if she should be, for now and evermore, the queen of England. There are no trial separations and there most emphatically are no flings. For royalty, marriage is forever, irrevocable — a sentence rather than a continuing option. There is, after all, no divorce for a king and queen. What Lady Diana Spencer needs is not a summer wedding but a few more years. After all, she's no lady. She's just a kid.

The Guessing Game - Updated/Melissa McCarthy

What will be on the cover of People this week? My guesses, in no particular order:

Vanessa Bryant: An emotional eulogy for husband Kobe and daughter Gigi at today's public memorial 
Ben Affleck: His new movie, The Way Back, opens March 6
Ryan Newman: A horrific crash at Daytona, his injuries were not as severe as originally feared. He had separated from wife just a few days before
Friends: A one-time reunion show will happen on HBO in May. It's probably not a coincidence that the show is happening just as all 236 Friends episodes begin streaming on HBO.
Carrie Underwood: Her new health and fitness book, titled Find Your Path, comes out next week
Katherine Johnson: The NASA mathematician, featured in the movie Hidden Figures, died at age 101
Harry & Meghan: They won't be able to use the word "royal" in any of their marketing projects, and presumably will have to rebrand the Sussex Royal website as well. They put a stern statement on their website; it appears that the "Megxit" is not going as smoothly as everyone might have hoped. (Read the statement here)
The Cast of Modern Family: They filmed the final episode after 11 years
"Blanket": Michael Jackson's son celebrates his 18th birthday. Did you know he changed his name to Bigi in 2015? Me neither. Read more here.
B. Smith: The lifestyle guru died at 70
Harvey Weinstein: Found guilty on two counts
Tracy Walder: Walder, an Attractive Blonde Woman, was a CIA spy; she's now written a book and an ABC show is in the works. (Read more here)



Stories that appear on the new cover will be highlighted in green.

Update on Wednesday morning:

Issue dated March 9, 2020: Melissa McCarthy


It's Melissa McCarthy this week, her 4th main cover story in about 4 1/2 years. This one is tied to her turn as host and executive producer of NBC's Little Big Shots. McCarthy is an attractive woman and a great actress, but she's also different in one specific way from most of Hollywood's female stars, and People's headline writers just can't stop themselves from referring to it. "Be yourself," "feeling great," "making her own rules" and "succeeding in Hollywood on her own terms" are all creative (and annoying) ways of drawing attention to her size without actually using the word "fat." Wouldn't it be great if the headlines could just highlight her talent?

This is the first cover this year that does not include a headline about the royal family.

Here are Melissa McCarthy's previous covers:

Issue dated May 21, 2018


Issue dated June 22, 2015


Issue dated July 7, 2014

This Day In History, 1980: Do You Believe In Miracles? Yes!!

"It was out of control. You go from nobody knows you to being the hockey god right away."

Ahead of the 40th anniversary of the Miracle On Ice, read @THNMattLarkin's oral history of the greatest international game in hockey history:https://t.co/vw2NZjCKwD

— The Hockey News (@TheHockeyNews) February 15, 2020

View this post on Instagram

On my office wall hangs one of my most prized possessions: the photo taken 40 years ago today by the great Heinz Kluetmeier, which became the only Sports Illustrated cover ever without any headlines or type. I was in college on February 22, 1980, the day of the USA-USSR hockey game at the Lake Placid Olympics. The game was played in the late afternoon/early evening Chicago time and was to be shown on ABC on tape delay that night, but there was no way I was going to wait for that. I pointed the antenna of my transistor radio out a window on the top floor of the Chi Omega house at Northwestern and somehow found a crackly broadcast of the game, and the rest was history. A few years later, I met Heinz and asked him every conceivable question about the game and his famous photo. Another year after that, he came up to me with a long, thin box. I opened it to find an incredible gift: this signed copy of his historic photograph.

A post shared by Christine Brennan (@cbrennansports) on Feb 22, 2020 at 1:50pm PST

Because you know I love magazine covers:


Issue dated March 3, 1980


An interesting tidbit. The hockey game was played at 5.00 Eastern time, but
ABC delayed airing it until 8.30 p.m. Before the game was shown,
hockey fans could watch this:

❄️ABC Primetime, February 22, 1980:
— ‘The Pink Panther Olympinks’ pic.twitter.com/OW6NjRVsnI

— RetroNewsNow (@RetroNewsNow) February 23, 2020

How Does He Sound To You? - Updated

Ladies and Gentleman, the President of the United States:

Trump is out here doing a comedy routine pic.twitter.com/gYeR4KpxWG

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 21, 2020

Seriously, get a load of the president pic.twitter.com/EFZ4VDlFlV

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 21, 2020

Yikes. Trump has some real trouble with the word "statistics." pic.twitter.com/rKCvhHFlBk

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 21, 2020

The president, everyone pic.twitter.com/NHcHDZTkuM

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 21, 2020

Look at that last video in particular. Is this the man you want in charge of the 
nuclear codes? Something is really wrong with Donald.


Update: This would be hilarious if it wasn't so pathetic (and scary):

Hilarious Video of Trump Saying He's An expert on Everythingpic.twitter.com/JmpB93jTmG

— PoliticsVideoChannel (@politvidchannel) February 22, 2020

Is Rod B About To Go Free?

I thought Donald had forgotten about pardoning former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich. Looks like maybe I was wrong:

BREAKING - @ABC News has learned President Trump expected to commute the sentenced of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich via multiple senior level sources - more to come @KFaulders @vlasto & me

— John Santucci (@Santucci) February 18, 2020

I wrote about Blago in early January, read that post here. 

If you've forgotten why Rod's in jail, a reminder. He also tried to shake down
a children's hospital for a campaign contribution:

https://t.co/q68bvFN2jR pic.twitter.com/sdKzdTRLbC

— Adam Bonin (@adambonin) February 18, 2020

Note: I said "pardoning" above; to be clear, what's apparently about to
happen is a commutation, not a pardon. 

More:

Reminder: Blago was not only convicted of selling a U.S. Senate seat. The Illinois governor threatened to withhold state money for a children's hospital unless its CEO coughed up money for his campaign. https://t.co/6lMBEtbiAU

— Chris Bury (@ChrisBuryNews) February 18, 2020

Blagojevich appeared as a contestant on Celebrity Apprentice. Blagojevich's wife, Patti, made a direct appeal to Trump by criticizing Obama, Comey, and Mueller on Fox News. The accelerating politicization of rule of law is extremely dangerous to American democracy. https://t.co/x1w7vRIbCb

— Brian Klaas (@brianklaas) February 18, 2020

Will be fascinating to see how the president’s base reacts to the reported commutation of former Illinois governor Blagojevich. Blago is a lifetime Democrat.

— Rob Elgas (@RobElgasABC7) February 18, 2020

It's done:

President Trump has commuted the 14-year prison sentence of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, The New York Times reports https://t.co/Qkp5Bz6yjR

— Chicago Tribune (@chicagotribune) February 18, 2020

In today's you can have two thought at once installment: you can believe Blagojevich's sentence was too long and that Trump is abusing his clemency power by failing to use it for the 1000s of people serving excessive sentences who don't have political connections

— Rachel Barkow (@RachelBarkow) February 18, 2020

Update on Sunday, February 23. Chicago Sun-Times columnist Neil 
Steinberg has some choice words about Rod:

If I must ....

But really: Does Rod Blagojevich require explaining? Is it not abundantly clear? Do we have to belabor the obvious?

When news broke last Tuesday that our nation’s No. 1 corrupt egomaniac, Donald Trump, had granted clemency to Illinois’ imprisoned corrupt egomaniac, Rod Blagojevich, I was talking to a group of college students who stopped by the paper — I have a column worked up about that discomfort, but it’ll have to wait, since the public is clamoring for more Rod.

”Nada on ... the sprung grey-haired guv?” challenged a regular reader, one of a number to inquire. “What gives?”

What gives is the latest act of a sad and tawdry long-running tragi-farce, a dismal freak show starring the animate political corpse of our former governor who, in fine chicken-with-its-head-cut-off style, emerged from distant confinement to run in circles around the media spotlight, emitting horrid wet, sputtering semi-clucks out of its stump of a neck.

We should turn away in revulsion. But reporters are jostling at the brimming trough for their interchangeable exclusives. Not to blame them. It’s in the blood. As I stood at the city desk, blinking at the news, my editor asked if I wanted to opine. I didn’t. Analyzing Blago is like doing color commentary for a coin toss. But the fire bell rings, the old engine horse stirs from its straw.

Two minutes later I was back in my office, consulting Kipling to remind myself which self-serving bromides Blagojevich was sure to spout, when my boss ambled over and observed that my colleague Mark Brown was already on the job.

Big smile and sigh of relief. Let Mark bus that table; let him hump that tub of greasy plates. And he did a fine job encapsulating the weary disgust that any lucid Illinoisan feels contemplating Blagojevich, saying it clearer than I would. No need for an echo.

But silence is seen as timidity in a world of constant gabber. My wife’s friends are asking her where my Blago column is. So ... let us opine. Two points:

First, none of this is funny. Blagojevich was a lousy governor before he betrayed his duty to the people of Illinois in a ham-handed grab at money. He shook down a children’s hospital. He attempted to sell a U.S. Senate seat.

He was tried by a jury, convicted fairly and given a stern sentence of 14 years because he never acknowledged his guilt. We live in a legal and moral system where comprehending you did wrong is the first step toward forgiveness. Blagojevich never did and never will — that would be big news. He is obviously incapable of shame.

That was the old redemption model. The new, Donald Trump version is to lie about all wrongdoing, deny it ever occurred, project your own moral failings upon those who confront you, and skate on pure bravado and BS.

Second, Blagojevich isn’t going to do anything he suggests he might do. He won’t try to reform the legal system, not any more than O.J. Simpson really looked for his wife’s killer (though I imagine O.J. glancing in a mirror, smirking and whispering, “Found him!”).

Achieving actual reform is hard work, even as an ex-governor who isn’t a convicted felon. Pat Quinn can tell you that. It takes years of unheralded effort. You can’t fix the criminal justice system by marrying Dick Mell’s daughter.

What Blago will become, for a while, is the new Chris Christie, another disgraced governor Trump allowed to squat in a corner of his royal chamber of courtiers, clowns and assorted henchmen straight out of a Dick Tracy rogue’s gallery. Blagojevich will preen and prance, shaking the bells on his fool’s motley, until Trump kicks him to the curb. The public will grow bored — I sure am — inspiring Blago to ever increasingly extreme claims: he is Jesus; he will cure cancer.

Until then, the media will trumpet every syllable because it feels obligated. I certainly do, today anyway. Blago fills airtime and column inches. But I don’t see the difference between our former governor and any other deranged person who strips off his clothing and twirls naked in the street. Rather than interview him, someone should throw a blanket over the poor man and hustle him away somewhere he can get the help he so obviously needs. (This is the column in its entirety.)

Click here to read the Mark Brown column Steinberg refers to above. 

The Guessing Game - Updated/Princess Kate

What will be on the cover of People this week? My guesses, in no particular order:

Dwayne Wade and Gabrielle Union: Supporting their daughter who has come out as transgender
Jussie Smollett: New legal trouble
Joe Jonas: Baby on the way?
Daniel Craig: Will play James Bond again in the next movie, titled No Time To Die
Royal Family: Harry and Meghan fire their staff in London, and were seen arriving in Canada on Friday; Kate gave an interview about motherhood that's getting a lot of attention
Julia Louis-Dreyfus and/or Will Farrell: Their new movie, Downhill opened Friday, to lukewarm reviews
Peter Weber: A lot of speculation about the Bachelor, including rumors that he ends up with a producer from the show. Plus, so far the ending has remained unspoiled. Contestant Victoria Fuller is also a possibility. She has apologized for the "White Lives Matter" controversy, but word on the street is that she's going to be shown in a bad light on Monday's episode of The Bachelor
Snoop Dog and/or Gayle King: He criticized her for her interview about Kobe Bryant, based on the misleading clip CBS promoted. He has since apologized and she has accepted (read more here)
Amanda Bynes: Engaged
Chris Randone and Krystal Neilson: The BIP couple has split up after eight months of marriage. I think this is the first "official" Bachelor divorce. Most of the couples who get engaged on the various shows end up breaking up eventually, but of the couples who have gotten engaged on The Bach, The Bach'ette or BIP then actually gotten married, I'm pretty sure this is the first divorce.
Kobe Bryant and/or Vanessa Bryant: His public memorial service is set for February 24. I'm surprised to see that they're charging admission. Bet the Jacksons are annoyed...
JJ Watt: Got married in the Bahamas
Matthew Perry: Dating a talent manager
Elton John: Stopped a concert in New Zealand due to illness

Stories that appear on the new cover will be highlighted in green.

Monday morning update. Amy Schumer: Talking about IVF
Madonna: She is now the first artist to have fifty number one hits on any charts

Update #2 on Tuesday morning. Harrison Ford: His new movie, Call of the Wild, opens Friday
The Earl of Snowdon: Son of the late Princess Margaret and nephew of the Queen, he's getting a divorce. After 24 years of marital harmony in the House of Windsor, this is the second divorce announcement in two weeks

Update #3 on Wednesday morning. It's another royal cover, the 4th main cover story in ten weeks to feature either Kate or Meghan. I imagine the editors considered whether or not to do another royal cover so soon, but Kate's interview, on the British podcast Happy Mum, Happy Baby, was too good to pass up. (And as I always say when a cover subject is featured over and over again, these issues must sell really well.) I'd like to thank whoever wrote the headline for not calling her "Kate Middleton." I know that "Princess Kate" isn't technically correct, but it's a lot more accurate than calling this woman who's been married for almost ten years by her maiden name. Old habits die hard, though, because the story at People.com, linked-to below, is titled "Why Kate Middleton Decided to Speak Out About Motherhood: 'This Is Not a Vanity Exercise.'" Grrrr. I had the missing kids on the Guessing Game list last week.

Issue dated March 2, 2020: Princess Kate



Last year at this time: Issue dated March 4, 2019

An Ignominious End For Roger Stone

Writing at Rolling Stone, Rick Wilson has some fun with words as he ponders Roger Stone's future. Apologies for the NSFW language, I cut-and-pasted exactly as written:

It’s not every day that a degenerate former swinger and serial scumbag who built a career based on a single line of bullshit and self-fellation so constant and vigorous that it is practically a yogic art form stands before the bar of justice, but here we are. Roger Stone is, as he loves to be, in the center of a national political scandal, and with his sentencing approaching in just days, Stone hoped the Trump “Justice” Department would save him from a well-deserved sentence of seven to nine years in prison.

Stone earned the recommended sentence not because he is a Trump ally, but because he threatened witnesses, lied to the court and to the House of Representatives, and got caught. Worst of all, he threatened Judge Amy Berman-Jackson online, defied various gag orders, and engaged in his usual rat-fuckery. He made the mistake of thinking that Judge Berman-Jackson is as gullible as the claque of hangers-on, wanna-be catamites, and scumbag errand boys with whom Stone usually surrounds himself.

The Trump media has been bleating for two days now that the original sentence recommended by the career Justice Department officials that Stone serve his twilight years breaking rocks, stamping out license plates, and working in a prison call center was a massive miscarriage of justice, a horror beyond words and reason, and a grim penalty for a wee, decrepit old dandy barely able to totter to the stand in his own defense.

Horseshit. The sentence Stone faced was appropriate because his actions weren’t simply a criminal — and criminally stupid — defense of the president. They were just one part of a wider assault from the transparently corrupt Trump-Barr kleptocracy on the entire administration of justice in the United States. William Barr, who has taken on the role of Trump’s family attorney, put his greasy thumb on the scale this week, demanding the U.S. attorneys in the case reduce Stone’s recommended sentence.

It led to the withdrawal of all four of the prosecutors, and the resignation of one. Barr’s bull-in-a-china-shop efforts on Stone’s behalf were comically absurd, driven by a Trump tweet, and will no doubt land him in front of congressional committees for a full political rectal exam in the immediate future.

But they were also par for the course in his role as the chief enabler and defender of this president. Barr has been systematically choking out every investigation of the Trump administration since he killed off Bob Mueller, and has no intention of stopping.

Like Trump, Barr is unbound, uncontrolled, and has no fear of congressional power. He doesn’t care about the scummy appearance of his actions; it’s a feature of Trumpism that anyone engaging in any action defending this president will be praised for it on the presidential Twitter feed and on the Presidential News Channel. The shamelessness is a feature, not a bug.

As Trump seeks to settle scores, terrify future witnesses, and generally act out all the fantasies in his authoritarian spank bank, Barr is his chief fluffer. Trump’s fantasy of having another Roy Cohn has come to life, with all of Cohn’s mendacity and amorality, but in a size 54 stout from Men’s Wearhouse.

Stone deserved everything in the first sentencing memo. Every minute. He deserves to be dragged from the courtroom in shackles and issued his itchy, federal-prison poly-cotton orange scrubs. Karmically, he deserves it because he was one of Trump’s lifelong enablers, and because once Trump was elected, Stone trafficked in the most lunatic and corrosive conspiracy theories under the sun. Stone’s gift for sleaze-bag political tactics was always that — tactical. He was great at piling on a wounded victim (see Elliot Spitzer), but it was Trump who kept Stone afloat for decades.

Of course, Stone likely won’t serve his full hitch, because Trump and Barr know that without a pardon Stone will squeal like a rat in a blender, proving that Trump lied to Mueller and about the details of the Trump-Stone-WikiLeaks connections. Stone sure as hell deserves his time in the graybar hotel for reasons of both ordinary and moral justice, and Judge Berman-Jackson has also likely had enough of Stone’s weapons-grade bullshit and may treat the revised DOJ sentencing letter as the political trash it is.

In some ways there’s a terrible and largely unremarked symmetry to the role Barr has played as Trump’s Roy Cohn. In the early days of his career, Stone was a bagman and dogsbody for the infamous Cohn, who served as an early Trump attorney and fixer in New York. Cohn, one of the most repellent and degenerate stains on America’s political landscape, was a perfect role model for both Trump and Stone.

In the late 1990s, I once asked the famous (or infamous, depending on your perspective) New York political operator Ray Harding about Stone. Harding was a man who knew where all the bodies — literal and metaphorical — were buried. He looked across his desk from behind a cloud of unfiltered-Camel smoke and said to me, “Roger parlayed one line of bullshit into a career. The only person who buys his bullshit is that moron Trump.”

At least some justice has come for Fort Lauderdale’s most prominent Penguin cosplayer and sleaze-ball boulevardier already. Trump left his former confidant hanging for two years, reducing Stone to penury in a one-bedroom apartment. Even if Trump pardons him, Stone will never work in politics again at any serious level — not that he did anyway.

He’ll never get out from under his legal bills. His speaking circuit appearances at local Republican clubs in Florida often bring in tens of dollars, and it’s gonna take longer than Stone has on this Earth to catch up. His days as a provocateur are over. He may get a hit or two on Infowars or OANN, but he’ll never be in the big green rooms again. His days without having the mark of “felon” — pardoned or not — branding him are over.

For Stone, one of the tragedies is that the world of campaigning has moved on from dumb, dirty tricksters like him; Trump will likely never allow him back into even his outer circle because Stone brings nothing of value to a modern campaign. He will never sit at the high table of the Orange King with his old status. Even a man of Stone’s unlimited chutzpah will never be able to wink and nod his way to convincing any but the most slack-jawed Trump fans he still has the confidence of the president.

The attention he craves will, on its best days, come as a form of pity. Stone’s last whisper of power and influence is gone, and no matter what happens next week, he’s going to bear the lifelong stain of a man who spent time in prison for crimes he gleefully committed.

Long sentence or short, everything Trump touches dies — even his most loyal henchman. (This is the article in its entirety.) 

After New Hampshire

It's the morning after the NH primary and three candidates have dropped out of the Democratic race for president: Andrew Yang, Michael Bennet and Deval Patrick. I've updated the lists.

I'm Running Declared Democratic candidates, in order of their announcement:

1. Elizabeth Warren (12/31/18)
2. Tulsi Gabbard (1/11/19)
3. Pete Buttigieg (1/23/19)
4. Amy Klobuchar (2/10/19)
5. Bernie Sanders (2/19/19)
6. Joe Biden (4/25/19)
7. Tom Steyer (7/9/19)
8. Michael Bloomberg (11/24/19)

I'm Not Running Anymore Declared candidates who have dropped out:

1. Richard Ojeda (1/25/19)
2. Eric Swalwell (7/8/19)
3. John Hickenlooper (8/15/19)
4. Jay Inslee  (8/21/19)
5. Seth Moulton (8/23/19)
6. Kirsten Gillibrand (8/28/19)
7. Howard Schultz (9/6/19) * Ran as an Independent   
8. Bill de Blasio (9/20/19)
9. Tim Ryan (10/24/19)
10. Beto O'Rourke (11/1/19)
11. Wayne Messam (11/20/19)
12. Joe Sestak (12/1/19)
13. Steve Bullock (12/2/19)
14. Kamala Harris (12/3/19)
15. Julián Castro (1/2/20)
16. Marianne Williamson (1/10/20)
17. Cory Booker (1/13/20)
18. John Delaney (1/31/20) 
19. Andrew Yang (2/11/20) 
20. Michael Bennet (2/11/20)
21. Deval Patrick (2/12/20)

Days until the election: 264

Trump Is, As Usual, Doing His Job Badly

From political scientist Jonathan Bernstein:

That Donald Trump is a sore winner is nothing new. But the extent to which he’s been exercising his vindictiveness over the last week since he survived a Senate impeachment trial is impressive. Politico’s Kyle Cheney lists the lowlights: “In 6 days since acquittal, Trump/WH have: removed Vindman; removed Sondland; vowed payback/retribution; attacked judge in Roger Stone case; attacked DOJ prosecutors for Stone sentencing proposal; attacked FBI Director Wray; withdrawn Liu/McCusker nominations.”

All of this and more has a lot of thoughtful people worried about the politicization of the Justice Department and the future of the rule of law in the U.S., and with good reason.

What I’ll add is that it’s also really inept presidenting. Trump is, as usual, doing his job badly.

After all, most of the retribution he’s attempting is pointless. Take, for example, his decision to remove Alexander Vindman from the White House in a humiliating fashion — having him escorted out — rather than waiting for Vindman to be rotated out of his National Security Council position in a few months. He gained nothing from it other than applause from Fox News and others who would applaud him if he blew his nose. Meanwhile, he risked further (further) alienating plenty of people who respect military service.

This reached a new level on Tuesday in the Roger Stone case, when four prosecutors withdrew from the case, one resigning entirely, after they were overruled in their sentencing recommendations in the wake of Trump’s public complaints. Trump’s pressure on Justice is likely to earn him more enemies within the bureaucracy. It may hurt him (or, at least, Stone) with the judge who has the sentencing decision. And all of this is further humiliation for senators who stuck with him on the impeachment vote only to have him increase his lawlessness practically as soon as the gavel banged down on the final vote.

Yes, I know what a lot of people say: Trump is getting away with it all. Republicans in Congress will do whatever he wants. But that’s not really true. After all, the other important thing that happened this week is that Trump’s budget proposal arrived on Capitol Hill, and was promptly flushed down the toilet by both parties. Matt Glassman gets it right: “Senate Republicans—if they cared—could *still* demand Trump clean house in WH, install a real CoS, and start running administration in a modestly non-corrupt manner. Yes, they have a collection action problem and face some individual risk, but they have plenty of leverage, too.” After all, as he notes, when they actually do care about substance, “Trump consistently backs down when Republicans tell him too—on NATO, on Korea, on closing border, etc.”

Note: In the second to last sentence above, I think he means "collective action problem," and in the last sentence, I think he means "when Republicans tell him to."

We are locked, in other words, not in a power struggle, but in something of a lack of power struggle. Trump is weak; Congress, and especially Republicans in Congress, are even weaker. And around them, institutions of democracy crumble not so much because Trump is a Mussolini but because none of them have any idea what they’re doing — or are so afraid of their shadows that they refuse to do anything. (This is the article in its entirety.)

The Guessing Game/Brad Pitt

What will be on the cover of People this week? My guesses, in no particular order:

Kirk Douglas: The legendary actor died at age 103. Will he get the full Dead Celebrity treatment? TV stars Orson Bean and Robert Conrad also passed away
Harrison Ford: Will be starring in a new Indiana Jones movie (At IMDB.com it's called "Untitled Indiana Jones Project," scheduled to debut in 2021)
Brad Pitt: No surprise at the Oscars, Brad won for Best Supporting Actor
Lori Vallow: A mom in Idaho, her children have been missing since September. Vallow is an Attractive Blonde Woman and I could see People doing a (possible) True Crime story about her. Read more here.
Dwayne Wade: Talking about his 12-year-old, who is trans
Gayle King: CBS published a misleading snippet of an interview about Kobe Bryant
Jon Peters: He's now claiming that Pamela Anderson married him for money
Tyler Cameron: Hannah Brown's Bachelorette runner-up is appearing on Single Parents
The Royal Family: Harry and Meghan attended an event in Miami, where they were seated next to J Lo and A-Rod; William and Kate are going to Australia to support fire relief efforts; Princess Eugenie's wedding is set for May 29 and Peter Phillips, the Queen's grandson and son of Princess Anne, is separating from his wife. Plus there's this, the new so-called Fab Four. Charles, Camilla, William and Kate made a rare joint appearance:

View this post on Instagram

The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall today visited Leicestershire. Joined by The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Their Royal Highnesses toured the Defence Medical Rehabilitation Centre in Loughborough. The centre is operated by @ministryofdefence and supports serving members of the Armed Forces who are recovering from injuries and trauma. During the visit, Their Royal Highnesses met wheelchair basketball players in the gym. 🏀 . 📷 Clarence House Picture 1 & 5 - PA

A post shared by Clarence House (@clarencehouse) on Feb 11, 2020 at 8:13am PST

Stories that appear on the new cover will be highlighted in green.

Update on Thursday morning. It's a hat trick this week; I had all three cover stories on the Guessing Game list above. Brad and Meghan were in the news last year too. And speaking of Meghan (and the other royals,) this is the 8th cover of 2020 and every one of them has featured one or more members of the royal family: two main covers, both featuring Harry and Meghan, and six smaller topline headlines featuring Harry, Harry and Meghan or Kate. Will this streak last all year? It wouldn't surprise me.

Issue dated February 24, 2020: Brad Pitt



Last year at this time: Issue dated February 25, 2019