The man who displays his hatred of the media more openly than any other recent occupant of the White House announced yesterday that he will attend the Gridiron Club Dinner, an annual gathering of politicians and journalists at which the politicians and the media break
bread —which is why Politico reporter Michael Calderone asks, “Is Trump trying to make amends with the press?” (https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/19/trump-gridiron-dinner-2018-417105).
Last year, Donald Trump conspicuously snubbed the White House Correspondents Dinner in favor of holding one of his typically obnoxious, rant-filled campaign-style rallies — you know, those rallies by means of which he, beyond any rational belief or understanding, managed to slip through and get to where he is now.
What does this mean? Has he awoken from his torpor in a misguided effort to look like a halfway decent occupant of the White House?
(As a CNN national security analyst says, Trump has a massive inferiority complex (https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2018/02/20/samantha-vinograd-trump-russia-inferiority-complex-sot-tsr.cnn — that just might explain a few things.)
Always on duty, moments ago, associate solitary reporter Johanna Jones asked Trump why he decided to attend the Gridiron Club event, as well as why he endorsed Mitt Romney in his run for the Senate from Utah. During the 2016 presidential campaign, Romney called Trump a fraud, and he was very critical of Trump for endorsing hatemonger Roy Moore for Jeff Sessions’ Senate seat in Alabama. Then Trump said Romney “would have dropped to his knees” for Trump’s endorsement when Romney ran against President Obama in 2012 (https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/19/politics/mitt-romney-donald-trump-utah/index.html).
So Jones asked Trump, “Are you trying to make nice to the press, after being such a total dipshit?”
“Johanna, you are young and pretty and all that, but as a totally partisan Democrat, hired by some even more partisan Democrat from Colorado to do his dirty work, you really don’t know a damn thing.”
Not skipping a beat, Jones parried by pointing out to Trump that he came off dead last in a poll of the nation’s leading political scientists in their ranking of the best and worst presidents. The seven greatest presidents, according to the respondents, are Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, FDR, Teddy Roosevelt, Thomas Jefferson, Harry S Truman, and Dwight D Eisenhower (https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/19/politics/trump-lincoln-presidential-greatness-survey/index.html).
Trump's response? He told his Chief of Staff, Gen. John Kelly, and his Secretary of Homeland Security, Kirstjen Nielsen, "Round up all those friggin' academics and send 'em to Gitmo.”
But Nielsen, a respected, long-time GOP policy wonk who previously worked for W, said, “Sir, you shouldn’t do that, and if you do, I’ll resign.”
As part of Trump’s hopeless effort to rehabilitate himself, he acceded to Nielsen, and dropped his plan to send the political scientists who tubed him to Gitmo, but he asked Kelly to keep a close watch on him, and, of course, Kelly agreed. Nielsen smiled, cautiously. Then Nielsen and Jones exchanged meaningful glances at each other, and Nielsen went back to her office, asking herself why she agreed to work for Trump.
We can’t let you go without wondering how soon Trump will fire his National Security Advisor, Gen. H. R. McMaster, whose nickname is “The Iconoclast General" (https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/20/trump-mcmaster-tension-national-security-adviser-417110) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._R._McMaster#Military_career), after McMaster said, in Munich, that the evidence of Russian meddling in our presidential election is incontrovertible. Your guess is as good as ours. Tell us what you think please.