Bush’s Speechwriter Just Jabbed Obama. Obama’s Deputy Chief Of Staff’s Response Is Epic
Six months into the Donald Trump administration, his tenure is distinguished by chaos, instability, and inefficiency. His White House is now infamous for its behind-the-scenes infighting and brutal backstabbings between warring factions as the establishment Republicans (team Prebius) struggle to wrest influence away from Trump’s New York business/mob/casino associates (team Mooch) and the far-right white supremacist ideologues (team Bannon).
It should say something that not one of the most prominent members of those three factions still work in the White House. Earlier this afternoon, a Twitter user asked if there was any kind of comparable infighting during the Obama administration in response to a smug assertion by former Bush speechwriter and disgusting Iraq War apologist David Frum.
Honest question: was there any sort of comparable infighting in Obama's West Wing?
— Chris Guiral (@ChrisCutsFilm) August 20, 2017
Incapable of shaking off the conservative urge to smear the Obama administration at every opportunity, Frum then argued that the Obama team was too harmonious.
As far as an outsider can tell, the Obama WH seemed a weirdly harmonious place – which also had costs, i.e. too much/too easy consensus https://t.co/9w3vdIzAtl
— David Frum (@davidfrum) August 20, 2017
President Obama’s former Deputy Chief of Staff shut down Frum with a powerful tweet of her own, pointing out the three biggest differences between the Trump and Obama teams.
We disagreed. We just weren't assholes. We were heard. And if you didn't get your way you didn't go kick rocks and tell Politico. https://t.co/tPsThSOpQy
— alyssa “activist witches 2020” mastromonaco (@AlyssaMastro44) August 20, 2017
Let’s breakdown those differences. While “assholes” is a fairly subjective term, it’s obvious that the Obama team undeniably had a vision of a better America and an ideological desire to see the lives of American people improve, to foster diversity of thought and equality among different sections of American societies.
Of course, President Obama also did not staff his administration with wife-beating Nazis, deranged religious extremists, and Wall Street’s most vicious predatory billionaires.
Secondly, President Obama was a man who wasn’t so intellectually ignorant and emotionally insecure that he refused to listen to any dissenting voices; indeed, he embraced it, even going out of his way to read conservative columnists criticizing his performance.
That stands in stark contrast to Donald Trump, who is so utterly uninterested in governance that his decision is often made by simply going with the opinion of whoever last spoke to him.
And thirdly, the hard-working people of the Obama administrated held enough respect for their President and were so dedicated to the task at hand – rescuing the United States from the worst economic depression in seventy years – that they didn’t run off to the press every time something didn’t go their way.
The difference couldn’t be more clear.
This is a staff report from former Occupy Democrats Editor in Chief Colin Taylor or contributor Rob Haffney.