Sean Spicer served as White House Press Secretary for the first six months of the Donald Trump Presidential Administration.
He set a standard for lying, toadyism, and incompetence for other White House press secretaries for the remainder of Trump’s term in office.
On the day of Trump’s inauguration, Trump said, “I looked out, the field was — it looked like a million, million and a half people.”
If Trump really saw a million or a million and a half people, then it raises serious doubt about his eyesight or further doubts about his mental capacity.
Only one of those issues can easily be corrected.
Spicer, in his first press conference as White House Press Secretary, said, “This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration — period — both in person and around the globe.”
No, it wasn’t.
Not even close.
When the news media questioned the veracity of his comment, the seething Spicer said the news media had deliberately underreported the size of the crowd “to minimize” Trump’s “enormous support.”
Here’s another take on the story: The news media questioned the veracity of Spicer’s comment because he was lying.
Why did Trump and Spicer lie about something that was so easy to prove false?
Here’s one possibility.
Donald Trump can’t help himself. He lies with the regularity that most of us breathe. The Washington Post reported that Trump made more than 30 thousand false statements during his four years as president.
Here’s another possibility:
Sean Spicer is an unctuous toady who cared nothing about the ethical responsibilities of his job.
The news media, including Fox News’s Fact Check department (apparently there is such a thing. I fact-checked it) said that Trump exaggerated the crowd at his inauguration.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/fact-check-trump-overstates-crowd-size-at-inaugural
Trump’s inauguration crowd paled by comparison to the 2009 inauguration of Barack Obama, who preceded Trump as president. Photographs of the crowd at Obama’s inauguration showed far, far more people than at Trump’s inauguration.
The New York Times estimated that there were about a third as many people at Trump’s inauguration than at Obama’s.
A third as many people.
The Washington D.C. metro subway system said there were about a third as many riders on the day of Trump’s inauguration than on the day of Obama’s inauguration.
The Washington Post’s fact checker gave Spicer four Pinocchios for its most egregious lies.
PolitiFact characterized Trump’s and Spicer’s statements as a “Pants on Fire” falsehood, which it gives to its most egregious lies.
CNN.com reported Spicer’s lie under the headline, “White House press secretary attacks media for accurately reporting inauguration crowds.”
https://money.cnn.com/2017/01/21/media/sean-spicer-press-secretary-statement
The Trump Administration tried to legitimize Trump’s lie with Spicer’s lie, and when that didn’t work, it tried to legitimize Spicer’s lie with yet another lie.
Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s top advisor, told NBC that Trump’s crowd numbers could not be verified and said that Spicer was providing what she called “alternative facts.”
NBC’s Chuck Todd then responded, “Alternative facts are not facts. They are falsehoods.”
In that moment, Conway “ushered in the era of alternative facts,” the Washington Post reported.
Spicer announced his resignation as press secretary in response to Trump’s hiring of Anthony Scaramucci as communications director, who Spicer learned, would fire him.
Scaramucci’s contribution to Spicer’s resignation was the only achievement of his ten-day tenure as communications direction.
Spicer’s hostile response to the press corps provided the inspiration for Melissa McCarthy to play him in a number of skits on Saturday Night Life.
Politico reported that Trump was incensed about McCarthy’s portrayal of Spicer – not because McCarthy played Spicer as a vindictive, out-of-control bully but because Spicer was played by a woman in drag.
“Trump doesn’t like his people to look weak,” a top Trump donor told the journalism website.
https://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/melissa-mccarthy-sean-spicer-234715
Nobody would have blamed Spicer if, having embarrassed himself in front of Trump, the White House and the country, he would have faded into obscurity.
Not Spicer.
He still had a millimeter of a millimeter of shred of shame left to his name . . .
Until he appeared as a contestant on Dancing with the Stars.
The Fox News website had this headline, “Sean Spicer on Dancing with the Stars Shimmying to Spice Girls’ song in a neon-green ruffled shirt.”
https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/sean-spicer-dancing-with-the-stars-spice-girls
No other White House press secretary had ever been described in such words.
Spicer was eventually voted off the show.
Writer Charlotte Clyber tweeted: “For 6 months, Sean Spicer served as White House Press Secretary to the most vile ‘president’ in modern history. In that time, he repeatedly lied, obfuscated, and endorsed the badgering of a free press. He enabled hatred. He belongs on a public blacklist, not in a waltz.”
