Donald Trump, the ultimate shape shifter and media maestro, may have met his match in the form of a two-headed monster-- Robert Mueller, the last Boy Scout, and Michael Avenatti, the steely-eyed junkyard dog litigator.
Mueller must be the exact opposite of Donald Trump. Mueller seems squeaky clean and entirely scrupulous. In an era of leakage, no secrets escape from the Mueller camp and he methodically probes the last presidential election. Mueller is organized. Trump likes chaos. Mueller walks past the TV cameras with a sense of purpose. He's intent on protecting us.
Trump is a different story. He may be the first president to not age in the job. Trump love himself so much he worries less for the nation. He didn't divest from his business interests. He cares more about the Trump brand than being leader of the free world.
Michael Avenatti, the attorney for porn star Stormy Daniels, has a Mueller-like focus but with a different agenda. Avenatti has Trump-like instincts for finding the weakness in an opponent and staying on message. Avenatti has the unflinching gaze of a race car driver. That's because he is one.
Steve Bannon reportedly said the #metoo movement posed a major threat to Trump presidency. Stormy Daniels does not spring to mind as the poster child for the #metoo movement. But Stormy and lawyer Avenatti have the personality requirements for facing Trump down-- in the courtroom and/or in the court of the media circus. Avenatti has an impressive resume-- an all-star student at George Washington University Law School, in Hollywood, including the O.J. Simpson civil case, and behind the wheel of a race car. And Stormy's resume speaks for itself.
Avenatti told us to "buckle up" for the 60 Minutes interview of Stormy Daniels next Sunday. I can think of at least one person who will be watching...
Showing posts with label Steve Bannon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Steve Bannon. Show all posts
Sunday, March 18, 2018
Friday, January 5, 2018
The Writer, the Firebrand and the President
This
is the story of three men-- a writer, a firebrand and the President of the
United States. The three men-- Michael Wolff, Steve Bannon and Donald Trump-- appear to be joined at the hip in the present media moment. Baby boomers all. These guys love to stir the pot. They court
controversy. They attack their enemies with vigor.
They have collided like three big ships
crowding the same harbor. Bannon and Trump are taking on water after the
collision. The collision is the publication of Michael Wolff's book-- Fire and Fury: Inside
the Trump White House.
I pulled some biographical information from Wikipedia on the
three men, capturing a few key moments in their personal and career
development.
Michael
Wolff—the writer
Born: August
27, 1953 (age 64)
Where: New
Jersey
Parents: Lewis
A. Wolff, an advertising professional, and Marguerite "Van" Wolff (1925-2012), a newspaper reporter
College: Columbia
University
Revealing
Anecdote:
Michael Wolff is not shy about
controversy! He published his first magazine article in the New
York Times Magazine in 1974: a profile of Angela Atwood, a neighbor of his
family. As a member Symbionese Liberation Army she helped kidnap Patricia
Hearst.
Achievement:
In the fall of 1998, Wolff published a book, Burn Rate, which recounted the
details of the financing, positioning, personalities, and ultimate breakdown of
Wolff's start-up Internet company, Wolff New Media. The book became a
bestseller.
Known for: Fire and Fury: Inside
the Trump White House
Problem:
Michael Wolff has been accused of making stuff up in the
past… as in creating new realities for his non-fiction books and articles
Donald
Trump-- President of the United States
Born; June
14, 1946 (age 71)
Where: Queens,
New York
Parents: Trump's immigrant roots!
Fred
Trump was primarily active in real estate in Queens and Brooklyn. Trump's
mother Mary Anne emigrated to New York from Scotland. Fred
and Mary were married in 1936 and raised their family in Queens.
College: Wharton
School
Revealing
Anecdote:
Donald
Trump couldn’t wait to get to Manhattan! At age 13, Trump
enrolled in the New York Military Academy, a private boarding school,
after his parents discovered that he had made frequent trips into Manhattan
without their permission.
Achievement:
Donald Trump learned media from the inside.He hosted The Apprentice, a reality television
game show about business, from 2003 to 2015
Known
for:
45th President
of the United States
Problem:
Doesn't like to read. Allowed
Michael Wolff access to White House. Characterized as “losing it” by Steve
Bannon and Michael Wolff.
Steve Bannon-- firebrand,
political strategist
Born: November
27, 1953, (age 64 years)
Where? Norfolk, Virginia
Parents Doris
a homemaker and Martin Bannon, who worked as an AT&T telephone lineman.
College: an
educated man
* Virginia Tech in
1976.
* Georgetown University School of Foreign
Service
* Harvard Business School-- MBA
degree with honors
Revealing
Anecdote: the birth of “Sloppy Steve”…?
During the summers, Steve Bannon took a job working at a
local junkyard often coming home so dirty his mother made him rinse off with a
hose before being allowed into the house.
Notable
success: Navy man
Bannon was an officer in the United States Navy for
seven years in the late 1970s and early 1980s, serving on the USS Paul F.
Foster destroyer and, afterwards stateside as a
special assistant to the Chief of Naval Operations at
the Pentagon. Bannon's job at the Pentagon was, among other things, handling
messages between senior officers and writing reports about the state of the
Navy fleet worldwide.
Known
for: Executive
chair of Breitbart News
Became White House chief strategist to President Donald
Trump
Problem—Steve Bannon must have forgotten the old saying about
“loose lips sink ships” that he should have learned in the Navy and/or
Pentagon. He reportedly said Ivanka Trump is “dumb as a brick” and stated that Donald
Trump is “losing it.” Fired by Trump several months ago, Bannon recently lost the
support of his billionaire Breitbart backer, the Mercer family, with anti-Trump
statements.
Monday, February 6, 2017
Commander Chaos: Trump moves faster
Marshall McLuhan, the great Canadian media guru, explains that a faster system destroys a slower system. The faster medium circles around the slower medium, surrounds it, consumes it and destroys it. Television moves faster than film. The Internet surrounded newspapers and destroyed them. The Internet destroyed bookstores; digital music did away with record stores; bookstores, likewise, fell out of sight. The cellphone moves around the desktop computer and personal computers decrease in number.
Donald Trump learned the television world as an insider with his own show. Cable TV moves faster than the networks. Twitter moves faster than cable TV and Trump keeps several steps ahead of the "mainstream media" through his Twitter account.
I laugh to hear people, including cables news media pundits, exclaim "can't somebody take that cellphone out of Trump's hand." That's like saying Robin Hood should put down his bow and arrow. What-- and pick up a spear and shield. Robin moved lightly and stayed ahead of the king's men.
Trump has a tool, his Twitter account, for getting to people faster than any of the cable outlets allows. He has a knack for moving quickly. He tries a strategy. If it fails, he never admits failure, just steps to the side, tweaks it, spins the story long enough for the story to get muddled and moves to the next thing. The man is a master of movement. His campaign struggled. He changed campaign managers. The next crew, including Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway did better and stayed. He found his audience, responded to the narrative they liked and moved ahead like a bull in a china shop.
Trump runs roughshod. His casino business didn't work. He went bankrupt and kept moving. We all wonder if this modus operandi works for running the free world. The story goes that his White House staff is in a state of constant turmoil. To quote a book of a few years back, he doesn't sweat the small stuff.
Presidents usually reassure us. President Franklin Roosevelt had his fireside chats and reassured the nation across the radio waves. That soothed anxieties through a Depression and a World War. How does the Trump method of stirring the hornet's nest compare to the peacefulness of a Barack Obama? A chorus of angry people, from the Tea Party rabble rousers to the Republican congressmen, hurled a constant chant of invectives at Obama. The right wing radio crowd led by Rush Limbaugh gnawed on Obama like he was a kind of satanic, malevolent force and never relented. Steve Bannon falls into that category. Be careful what you wish for--
Now Commander Chaos is in power. Trump sleeps 4 hours a night and wakes each morning stirring for a fight. Remember "speak softly and carry a big stick" came from Teddy Roosevelt, another master of imagery.
Trump insulted a Judge who rejected his Muslim ban. He called the man a "so-called judge." That move upset me. He spit in the face of the American system, the balance of powers between the executive, legislative and judicial branches. Trump knows no boundaries-- hence the Commander Chaos moniker.
He continues to move at warp speed and exhausts everybody, even in the media hounds who thrive on the campaign trail. They love the jab and parry of electoral politics. That election season, the horse race of politics, was supposed to slow down with the election of a new president. Not for Trump, he enjoys King Lear's blasted heath. He refuses to slow down. We all suck wind to keep up and long for quieter days.
Melissa McCarthy's parody of Sean Spicer, White House press secretary, on Saturday Night Live, captured the insane, fever pitch of the present situation better than just about any rational analysis presented these last few weeks. She captured the Alice in Wonderland aspect of Mr. Trump's White House with brilliance and Trump-like intensity. Alec Baldwin has done a great job as Trump. SNL
seems like a voice of sanity in this whirlwind. Is this the new normal? That's the question we all must ask ourselves. Just look at that cellphone in your hand.
Donald Trump learned the television world as an insider with his own show. Cable TV moves faster than the networks. Twitter moves faster than cable TV and Trump keeps several steps ahead of the "mainstream media" through his Twitter account.
I laugh to hear people, including cables news media pundits, exclaim "can't somebody take that cellphone out of Trump's hand." That's like saying Robin Hood should put down his bow and arrow. What-- and pick up a spear and shield. Robin moved lightly and stayed ahead of the king's men.
Trump has a tool, his Twitter account, for getting to people faster than any of the cable outlets allows. He has a knack for moving quickly. He tries a strategy. If it fails, he never admits failure, just steps to the side, tweaks it, spins the story long enough for the story to get muddled and moves to the next thing. The man is a master of movement. His campaign struggled. He changed campaign managers. The next crew, including Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway did better and stayed. He found his audience, responded to the narrative they liked and moved ahead like a bull in a china shop.
Trump runs roughshod. His casino business didn't work. He went bankrupt and kept moving. We all wonder if this modus operandi works for running the free world. The story goes that his White House staff is in a state of constant turmoil. To quote a book of a few years back, he doesn't sweat the small stuff.
Presidents usually reassure us. President Franklin Roosevelt had his fireside chats and reassured the nation across the radio waves. That soothed anxieties through a Depression and a World War. How does the Trump method of stirring the hornet's nest compare to the peacefulness of a Barack Obama? A chorus of angry people, from the Tea Party rabble rousers to the Republican congressmen, hurled a constant chant of invectives at Obama. The right wing radio crowd led by Rush Limbaugh gnawed on Obama like he was a kind of satanic, malevolent force and never relented. Steve Bannon falls into that category. Be careful what you wish for--
Now Commander Chaos is in power. Trump sleeps 4 hours a night and wakes each morning stirring for a fight. Remember "speak softly and carry a big stick" came from Teddy Roosevelt, another master of imagery.
Trump insulted a Judge who rejected his Muslim ban. He called the man a "so-called judge." That move upset me. He spit in the face of the American system, the balance of powers between the executive, legislative and judicial branches. Trump knows no boundaries-- hence the Commander Chaos moniker.
He continues to move at warp speed and exhausts everybody, even in the media hounds who thrive on the campaign trail. They love the jab and parry of electoral politics. That election season, the horse race of politics, was supposed to slow down with the election of a new president. Not for Trump, he enjoys King Lear's blasted heath. He refuses to slow down. We all suck wind to keep up and long for quieter days.
Melissa McCarthy's parody of Sean Spicer, White House press secretary, on Saturday Night Live, captured the insane, fever pitch of the present situation better than just about any rational analysis presented these last few weeks. She captured the Alice in Wonderland aspect of Mr. Trump's White House with brilliance and Trump-like intensity. Alec Baldwin has done a great job as Trump. SNL
seems like a voice of sanity in this whirlwind. Is this the new normal? That's the question we all must ask ourselves. Just look at that cellphone in your hand.
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