I thought advisers were supposed to make you better, not worse.
This weekend the new Trump Press Secretary lied to reporters (not new) and Senior Trump Adviser Kellyanne Conway went full Orwell defending said lie (that's new).
On Saturday, Press Secretary Sean Spicer blasted media members for their reporting on the size of the crowd for Friday's inauguration and accusing them of tweeting misleading pictures. Where Spicer stepped in it was when he unabashedly stated “this was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period.”
Was it? Probably not.
Aerial photos seem to show a larger crowd at President Obama’s first inauguration. The Nielsen ratings show that Obama also had a larger television audience. Some of the photos circling on Twitter are misleading, but since more people watch an inauguration on Television debating the pictures may be moot.
Where this gets FUBAR is when Conway defended the lie on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday saying that Spicer wasn’t lying or spreading ‘falsehoods’ but was instead presenting ‘Alternative Facts’.
‘Alternative Facts’ are simply preposterous and the out-and-out rejection of this absurd half-baked idea is prudent for the sake of our Democracy. Having a free and independent press to challenge half-brained ideas such as this is one of the most critical and important safeguards of our Democracy.
I should add that I lament that, this scrutiny hasn’t been seen much over the last eight years. To say that some of this scrutiny over the weekend is coming from anything other than partisanship is, in itself, a presentation of ‘Alternate Facts.’
I digress.
The role of advisers is a simple one; to support and aid the person they are giving counsel to. To fall so embarrassingly short of that standard makes the President, some less than 48-hours into office, look like a laughing stock.
This weekend Trump’s team failed him. Hopefully, they learn and learn quick.