Wolff Did What Every Other Reporter Is Too Cowardly to Do

Trump and Michael Wolff

Having been around politics for decades and also been authoring a blog and columns for over a decade as well, one of the games that is played all too often by members of the media and reporters is that of scratching each others backs.  From the politician's perspective, it helps keep coverage more favorable while for the reporter it keeps the doors and access open to the politicians they write about.  In the process, coverage of the unvarnished truth often gets lost in the process as reporters put continued access above their duty to the public to expose corruption, incompetence, sexual misdeeds, etc., etc.   In his new book, Fire & Fury, Michael Wolff threw this game of protecting future access out the window and laid bare what far to many reporters are afraid to do and in the process centered a spotlight on the foul cesspool that is the current occupant of the White House and his enablers and sycophants.  A piece in GQ lays out this premise and explains what so many journalist who play the access game are acting as if someone pissed in their Cheerios and assailing Wolff.  Here are excerpts: 

All of Wolff’s excerpts from Fire & Fury . . . . . it confirms what we have all always known to be true: that the president severely lacks the cognitive ability to do this job, and that he [Trump] is surrounded at all times by a cadre of enablers, dunces, and outright thieves. As much as I wanna discredit Wolff, he got receipts and, more important, he used them. Wolff got it all. Wolff nailed them.

And look how he did it. He did it by sleazily ingratiating himself with the White House, gaining access, hosting weird private dinners, and then taking full advantage of the administration's basic lack of knowledge about how reporting works. Some of the officials Wolff got on tape claim to be unaware that they were on the record. Wolff denies this, but he's very much up front in the book's intro about the fact that he was able to exploit the incredible "lack of experience" on display here. In other words, Wolff got his book by playing a bunch of naive dopes.

Thank God for that. Wolff has spent this week thoroughly exploiting Trump and his minions the same way they've exploited the cluelessness of others. And he pulled it off because, at long last, there was a reporter out there willing to toss decorum aside and burn bridges the same way Trump does.

Everyone around Donald Trump is too polite to Donald Trump. Democrats, foreign dignitaries, underlings… all of them. And the White House press is perhaps the worst offender. From the media pool playing along with Sarah Sanders during press conferences—conferences where Sanders openly lies and pisses on democracy—to access merchants like Maggie Haberman doling out Trump gossip like so many bread crumbs, too many reporters have been far too deferential to an administration that is brazenly racist, dysfunctional, and corrupt. And for what purpose? It’s clear to me that Haberman and the like aren’t saving up their chits for just the EXACT right time to bring this Administration down. No, the only end goal of their access is continued access, to preserve it indefinitely so that the copy spigot never gets shut off. They are abiding by traditional wink-wink understandings that have long existed between the government and the press covering it.

But Wolff didn’t do that. He did not engage in some endless bullshit access tango. No, Wolff actually USED his access, and extended zero courtesy to Trump on the process, and it’s going to pay off for him not just from a book sales standpoint, but from a real journalistic impact. I am utterly sick to death of hearing anonymous reports about people inside the White House “concerned” about the madman currently in charge of everything. These people don’t deserve the courtesy of discretion. They don’t deserve to dictate the terms of coverage to people. They deserve to be torched.

If You Work for/Supported Trump, It’s Time to Quit/Stop

One thing that baffled me during the 2016 presidential campaign was how decent, moral individuals could support Donald Trump, a narcissistic pathological liar, sleazy businessman, and serial sexual predator.  True, Hillary Clinton left much to be desired in the minds of some, but one would think that the tape of Trump boasting about molesting women and grabbing them in their genitals seemingly should have outweighed reservations with Clinton.  I like to think that Trump's calls to racism and bigotry were not the determinative factor with Trump voters who in other ways seem decent.  Now, with a special prosecutor in place and literally daily breaking news revealing yet more Trump transgressions and efforts to obstruct justice, isn't it time to walk away form Trump and regain integrity and arguably patriotism as well?  A column by a 30 year Republican political consultant in the Washington Post addressed to White House staff and even Cabinet members would seem to apply to Trump voters as well.  Here are column excerpts:

I’ve been a Republican political consultant for almost 30 years, and I’ve dispensed a lot of private advice. But now it’s time for me to reach out publicly to my fellow Republicans working in the Trump administration.

We really need to talk.

Whether you’re a 20-something fresh off the campaign trail, or a seasoned Washington insider serving in the Cabinet, by now you’re painfully aware that you’re not making America great again; you’re barely making it to the end of the daily news cycle before your verbally incontinent boss, the putative leader of the free world, once again steers the proverbial car into a ditch. On every front, you’re faced with legal, political and moral hazards. The president’s job, and yours, is a lot harder than it looked, and you know the problem originates in the Oval Office.

I know: Many of you serving in Cabinet, sub-Cabinet and White House roles joined Team Trump in good faith, believing you could help steady the ship, smooth the rough edges and, just maybe, put some conservative policy wins up on the board. You could see that President Trump’s undisciplined style was risky, but you hoped the big show playing over at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. would provide you with cover to work steadily and enthusiastically on the administration’s legislative priorities. Some of you even bought into the ‘Merica First new nationalism. Many of you quietly assured friends in the Washington ecosystem that Trump would settle into his job . . . .

Sure, you knew you’d have to feed Trump’s ego and let him take a victory lap after every success, but you also thought you might claim a smidgen of credit for a popular infrastructure bill, a big tax cut, repeal of Obamacare or a host of other “easy” lifts. Because we’re all ambitious, right? It’s okay to admit it. . . . . Instead, your president botched Trumpcare 1.0 and contributed little as Speaker Paul Ryan managed to ram public-relations nightmare, Trumpcare 2.0, through the House at the cost of much political blood and treasure. Instead, Trump’s fumbles have left many members of Congress ducking town hall meetings like they’re in the witness protection program. The tax bill and the rest of Trump’s agenda are deader and more pungent than six-day-old fish.

Now, you see the daily train wreck; you see a White House in turmoil and a president drawing an ever-tighter circle of family and corporate vassals around himself. You worry that the scandals and legal troubles, which have been rumbling on the horizon like a summer thunderstorm, are drawing nearer. You should worry. . . . Soon (and by soon, I mean now) you’ll have to make a choice. You’ll have to decide whether I’m here to help has morphed into I’m helping this president dismantle the republic. In D.C., principle is as rare as hen’s teeth, but, GOP friends, I’m here to help you.

Sticking with Trump to the bitter end and pretending the unfolding chaos is just “fake news” won’t save your reputation as the walls close in. It won’t ease the judgment of history. It won’t do anything to polish up your future Wikipedia entry.

Cutting ties with a man who is destructive to our values, profoundly divisive, contemptuous of the rule of law and incontrovertibly unfit to serve in the highest office in the land just might. Do it now.