Steve Benen over at Maddow Blog, notes that there are plenty of television and cable programs that depict life in the White House that makes the viewers wonder which one is closest to realty. He thinks it may be HBO’s “Veep” staring Julia Louis Dreyfus. Unfortunately, this White House is imitating art. According to the Washington Post, after finding out that Trump had abruptly fired the FBI director, the White House staff was left scrambling and in full panic mode:
For more than three hours, Spicer and his staff had been scrambling to answer that question. Spicer had wanted to drop the bombshell news in an emailed statement, but it was not transmitting quickly enough, so he ended up standing in the doorway of the press office around 5:40 p.m. and shouting a statement to reporters who happened to be nearby. He then vanished, with his staff locking the door leading to his office. The press staff said that Spicer might do a briefing, then announced that he definitely wouldn’t say anything more that night. But as Democrats and Republicans began to criticize and question the firing with increasing levels of alarm, Spicer and two prominent spokeswomen were suddenly speed-walking up the White House drive to defend the president on CNN, Fox News and Fox Business.
Sounds like a sitcom script so far. It gets even more inane:
After Spicer spent several minutes hidden in the bushes behind these sets, Janet Montesi, an executive assistant in the press office, emerged and told reporters that Spicer would answer some questions, as long as he was not filmed doing so. Spicer then emerged.
“Just turn the lights off. Turn the lights off,” he ordered. “We’ll take care of this. … Can you just turn that light off?”
Spicer got his wish and was soon standing in near darkness between two tall hedges, with more than a dozen reporters closely gathered around him.
Hollywood could not have written this better. I can see Melissa McCarthy on Saturday Night Live now.
Benen points out that that if we had seen this on TV we be laughing. The problem is this is reality, not art. This is the chief spokesman for the United States demanding to be interviewed in the dark. Like the masthead of the Post says: “Democracy Dies In Darkness“.