The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum created the Profile in Courage Award in 1989. The award “recognizes a public official (or officials) at the federal, state or local level whose actions demonstrate the qualities of politically courageous leadership.” Former president Barack Obama was awarded the honor this year. Other recipients include Senators John McCain and Russell Feingold for their act banning “soft money” and John Lewis for his leadership in civil rights. If I could unilaterally offer this award for 2018, the last person on earth I would choose would be White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer.
Spicer has had a long career inside the Republican apparatus. He was the communications director for many GOP congressmen and most recently for the Republican National Committee. So, his present position as the spokesperson for a Republican president is exactly what he wanted. Except that the Republican president is the notorious serial liar Donald Trump.
From the start, Spicer has been combative with the White House Press Corps. On Jan. 21, Spicer declared that reporters had been dishonest about the size of Trump’s inauguration crowd, claiming that it had been the most attended in history. You could prove him wrong by writing a series of complex algorithms. Or, you could just look at side-by-side pictures of Trump and Obama’s inauguration. It’s not even close, which led to the satirical hashtag #Spicerfacts to trend on Twitter.
A few days later, the Press Corps badgered Spicer regarding Trump’s claim that three to five million people voted illegally in 2016 (a claim he has not retracted). Reporters tried to pin Spicer down on what the source of the information was, but to no avail. National Public Radio’s Mara Liasson took Spicer on, asking if Trump truly believes there were so many illegal votes, why hasn’t he called for investigations? Spicer flailed in his response, eventually conceding that “maybe we will [investigate].” I wonder how that’s going. By now the investigation should have tallied up illegal voting instances in the thousands.
The bombastic nature of Spicer has created some great comedic material. On “Saturday Night Live,” Melissa McCarthy plays Sean Spicer to the extreme. McCarthy screams at reporters, chews enormous amounts of gum and literally steers the podium at the press.
Spicer has turned the daily White House press briefings into promos for the entire Trump show. It’s got lies, it’s got badgering of the press and of course, it’s got a plethora of exaggerations.
About a year ago, Trump said, “Don’t believe these phony numbers when you hear 4.9 and 5 [percent] unemployment. The number’s probably 28, 29, as high as 35. In fact, I even heard recently 42 percent.”
Unfortunately for Trump, last Friday the jobs report came out which showed steady growth compared to prior months. It was unfortunate for Trump because in his rush to congratulate himself for the great jobs report, he had forgotten that he claimed that he “heard” unemployment was at 42 percent. Well, I heard we didn’t actually land on the moon, Tupac is still alive and Fox News is fair and balanced, but that doesn’t mean I would try to sell those falsehoods as facts.
The Press Corps pressed McCarthy — oh wait, it was actually Spicer — on this Trumpian hypocrisy.
“In the past, the president has referred to particular job reports as phony or totally fiction,” a reporter asked. “Does the president believe that this jobs report was accurate and a fair way to measure the economy?”
“I talked to the president prior to this, and he said to quote him very clearly,” Spicer responded. “They may have been phony in the past, but it’s very real now.”
The funny thing is — depending on how open your sense of humor is — that all of those #Spicerfacts pale in comparison to the next one. The worst lie Trump has told was on March 4 before 7 a.m. on Twitter:
Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my “wires tapped” in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017
After dodging from Trump and his aides on providing any evidence, let alone explanation of the tweet, Spicer finally explained how the press got it wrong. Spicer claimed on Monday that “wire tapping” is not the same as wiretapping. So, the president of the United States seemingly claimed that the former president had initiated spying on the candidate from the opposite party. Then, no White House official clarified what Trump meant for over a week. After that, Spicer says that the use of the quotes means “wire tapping” could have been referring to “a whole host of surveillance types.”
Terrible! I just found out that the White House Press Secretary will go to any length to defend Trump no matter what he says. Nothing of morals. This is fascism.
Spot on,! I think he must inhale helium before he speaks!