Bruce Dickinson
Footballguy
We were looking for "John Barron"... Judges?.... They say "Close Enough"!
Mister CIA gets the points and control of the board.
Fantasy Football - Footballguys Forums
Welcome to Our Forums. Once you've registered and logged in, you're primed to talk football, among other topics, with the sharpest and most experienced fantasy players on the internet.
***THE MOOCH: Mooch receives unprecedented "cease and desist" letter from Springsteen to stop listening to "Backstreets" on loop. Mooch too sad to rep (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Good Posting Judge
- Start date
Mister CIA gets the points and control of the board.
Mister CIA
Footballguy
Bruce Dickinson
Footballguy
I love Mooch's "I made a mistake in trusting in a reporter. It won't happen again" declaration so much. Mooch felt betrayed by these quotes getting printed when the purpose of his call was to harass a reporter to reveal a source. If he thought the call was off the record, then he was leaking a bunch of information to a reporter.
It's like Mooch sees the iceberg, and thinks the proper course of action is to floor it and hope the Titanic builds up enough speed to jump over it.
joffer
Footballguy
David Dodds
Administrator
Last edited by a moderator:
Bruce Dickinson
Footballguy
"The Mooch did his homework"
Kudos to The Daily Show for putting this together.
(and to The Mooch for retweeting it)
Kudos to The Daily Show for putting this together.
(and to The Mooch for retweeting it)
Good Posting Judge
Footballguy
Those are really good. I feel like memes and shtick still have the ability to bring us together as a nation.
msommer
Footballguy
Osaurus
Footballguy
Thunderlips
Footballguy
Serious question. You guys are WAY more versed in political history than I am. Is there anyone in White House history that remotely approaches this level of the stuff Scaramucci said there? I'm fully aware my style of running a business or life is far from the rough and tumble Long Island business style. Fully get that. Donald Trump dislike aside, how far out of the norm was this?
My first thought is this was off the charts. But I don't know. i honestly can't name that many WH Communications Directors or other positions over the last 50 years.
So I'm asking how far out of the norm is this for someone in such a prominent WH position? Anyone remotely close?
My first thought is this was off the charts. But I don't know. i honestly can't name that many WH Communications Directors or other positions over the last 50 years.
So I'm asking how far out of the norm is this for someone in such a prominent WH position? Anyone remotely close?
Last edited by a moderator:
Mister CIA
Footballguy
I'm reminded of Ralph Ciffaretto; luckily for Mooch, Trump is low energy.
https://youtu.be/LhEv4-2SAVU
https://youtu.be/LhEv4-2SAVU
massraider
Footballguy
White House history?
Think bigger. At the state and municipal level, he would be gone.
He doesn't even have the job yet.
Henry Ford
Footballguy
I'd say the closest is probably Rahm Emmanuel, but he was Chief of Staff, not Communications. And Mooch is about 10x crazier so far.
fatguyinalittlecoat
Footballguy
Rahm is smart enough to do his profanity-laced tirades behind closed doors. There's a long history of people like that -- I think LBJ is a prominent example. But those guys were generally effective at getting what they wanted with those strategies.
Mooch is a whole new breed of insanity. His mission seems to be to publicly humiliate people. There doesn't seem to be an overarching plan at work here.
TobiasFunke
Footballguy
Seen a lot of good pop culture comparisons, but to me the runaway winner is 80s guy from that episode of Futurama.
Even the quotes match up:
Even the quotes match up:
Last edited by a moderator:
Thanks. I edited my post to include other positions.
Where I'm going with this is I'm asking my conservative friends what they make of it. And I don't know enough about WH Staff history to know there.
SaintsInDome2006
Footballguy
No, no one is close.
Mooch speaks for the President, he is communications director for the White House, the nerve center of United States government. What he says is US policy. No president has ever attacked his own AG, his own chief of staff, his ow cabinet. It's like someone stabbing themselves in the arm and leg, so no we have never had this.
Actually there was Andrew Johnson, who got impeached for it.
Last edited by a moderator:
Henry Ford
Footballguy
Staffers are a bit like offensive linemen. When everyone starts talking about you, you're probably doing a terrible job.
Yankee23Fan
Fair Tax!
My kind of mental gymnastics.
I think you can make a pretty good argument that Thomas Jefferson might be up there. As Secretary of State he openly rebelled against the sitting President and bankrolled a newspaper behind the scenes to attack the administration that he was a part of. Jefferson wrote to Madison basically outlining his plan to do it in 19th century parlance.
As Vice President he openly feuded with John Adams when John was President. We basically didn't have an effective Vice President during that time, not that the office meant much back then. And John Adams as President ignored his cabinet and openly warred with them, but that was his own fault for keeping Washington's allies and not getting his own.
You could add Secretary Edwin Stanton during Lincoln's term, but only in a very small period of time, from when Lincoln was shot until Booth and his co-conspirators were killed. Stanton took control of the country at the moment and basically, though not formally, declared martial law without the power to do it and ran the government. But, in his defense, there was no functioning government in that moment as Lincoln was dying, Johnson was drunk, Sewerd was feared dead and Grant wasn't in Washington. Looking back through history, Stanton is admired for how he handled everything and it's hard to attack him for it.
In more recent times you have the idiocy of Secretary Alexander Haig after Reagan was shot. What he said and did in the 48 hours after the shots were fired were as close to criminal treason as a cabinet member could get without just declaring himself king.
I can't think of any press directors though. It's a relatively new position and a creation of the media establishment of the 20th century. Most of them aren't and haven't been insane. Of course, this administration takes the cake. But for members of an administration that rise to the level of Mooch and his current 21st century version of craziness, I'd be willing to argue that Thomas Jefferson was just as bad, and potentially worse.
Yankee23Fan
Fair Tax!
It's an abomination of everything that is great about our political history.
But look, I don't think you can call me naïve. I have no doubt in my mind, and fully expect, that cursing tirades of I'm going to kill he or she happens all the time in the confines of closed door meetings in the West Wing. There are too many alpha dogs in closed quarters for it to not happen. And in that context it's perfectly fine. Hell, it's democracy in its most bloody rhetorical form. But this is different. And the context matters.
If this was President Obama's staffer, or Bush's or Clinton's or anyone going back to Ford, you could make an argument that there is a plan underneath it and someone is purposely taking the shrapnel for the President because it's necessary for something else. It's not a strong argument, but it's not impossible. President's do it all the time, though not in this grandiose way. But there is nothing about this administration that leads to believe they know what the hell they are doing. And without some kind of political context to what is going on we are left with........ abomination. Of the worst kind.
There is no 4D chess. Frankly, I find people that use those kinds of statements have never played chess or if they have they aren't any good. My toddler plays 4D chess. 4D chess is when you move the piece its correct path, then move another one out of turn not in the correct path, take your dads piece for no reason but laugh while you are doing it because it's cute, and then drop a Paw Patrol toy on the board that has super powers that wins the game. That is 4D chess.
I stand corrected, this administration is playing 4D chess. The only question is if they are using Marshall or Chase.
SaintsInDome2006
Footballguy
joey
Footballguy
I only know this because we saw Hamilton and have been listening to the soundtrack nonstop for the past month
the difference with Jefferson as VP is that he wasn't "chosen" for that position by the president. He came in 2nd and was therefore named VP. So he absolutely was a rival of John Adams through the election and thereafter.
and that's what I learned from a musical about the man who invented the Treasury Dept.
SaintsInDome2006
Footballguy
Let's keep in mind that's before there were formally 2 parties and we had split coalition government in the executive branch as a rule. Ultimately the VP was made the same party as the president and the split executive government model was considered ineffective for just that reason, infighting was inevitable and damaging. Look at Aaron Burr, I think that would be the only example of anything like or worse than this. Again, that's why we changed the system. However this shows how the Republicans did not elect an actual Republican. The people TrumpMooch are attacking are solid, true, party Republicans, not anyone else.
Last edited by a moderator:
Yankee23Fan
Fair Tax!
Very true. It was definitely one of the failings of the original text of the Article II executive. However, there were a rather large amount of unwritten gentlemen rules in 18th and 19th century politics in this country. Jefferson broke them all. Now, save for his abysmal failures that led to the War of 1812, he isn't exactly judged poorly for it because what he ended up doing was create a political dynasty that stretched to Jackson.I only know this because we saw Hamilton and have been listening to the soundtrack nonstop for the past month
the difference with Jefferson as VP is that he wasn't "chosen" for that position by the president. He came in 2nd and was therefore named VP. So he absolutely was a rival of John Adams through the election and thereafter.
and that's what I learned from a musical about the man who invented the Treasury Dept.
The kind of rivals that Adams and Jefferson were though, at the time, weren't what we consider political rivals today. They each respected the hell out of each other. Jefferson would write badly about Adams, but it was always with a tinge of regret; Adams would do the same about Jefferson. And their letters to each other after the fact show a grand understanding of the greatness they were a part of in their time. There will be no setting the record straight for all posterity with this current crew. The sooner they are erased from the history books and talked about as nothing more than a cautionary tale the better. The Adams Jefferson rivalry, on the other hand, should be required study for everyone wanting to understand American politics because those letters are the very real, on the ground, understanding from the men who lived it as to just what the American revolution was all about.
And this wasn't it.
Ditkaless Wonders
Footballguy
Earl Butz? His most famous quote cannot be reproduced here under the board moderation policy. Not the Press Secretary, but in the Administration.
Ramsay Hunt Experience
Footballguy
My understanding is that both the Nixon and LBJ tapes were filthy, but that's private deliberations.
Ditkaless Wonders
Footballguy
While Earl Butz's most famous remark was meant to debase Black America (He at the time used the term "Coloreds" which was then the more politically correct term than what he might have gone with) I more or less took it to heart for myself. I wanted the three factors he listed for me.
HellToupee
Footballguy
This is John McCain's style. Over the top with vulgarities. Part of the reason McCain hated Mitt was because Romney never swore and of course never drank alcohol.
Henry Ford
Footballguy
Zow
Footballguy
HellToupee
Footballguy
Last edited by a moderator:
Henry Ford
Footballguy
My apologies. I was on a mobile. I've switched to a computer now and can clearly see it's Herman Munster in drag.
Zow
Footballguy
I've heard the same. In fact I recall literally hearing some of the Nixon stuff. Definitely would get him a timeout here.
Last edited by a moderator:
HellToupee
Footballguy
timschochet
Footballguy
NY Post reporting that Trump loved Scaramucci's rant. Which doesn't surprise me at all.
Henry Ford
Footballguy
![[scooter]](/data/avatars/m/22/22287.jpg?1659477690){kind=avatar}
[scooter]
Footballguy
There is a time-honored tradition of politicos going off on foul-mouthed tirades to a reporter. Usually those tirades are not reported because they are off-the-record. This tirade was NOT off-the-record, likely because Scaramucci was not savvy enough to tell the reporter to keep it off the record.
If Trump comes out officially in support of Scaramucci like his son did, I think that might finally tip the scales for some people. "Sources say" are one thing. But when it's clear for the world to see like https://twitter.com/DonaldJTrumpJr/status/890900449422974976 is something else.
squistion
Footballguy
I doubt it, the scales weren't tipped after the Access Hollywood video was released and it was dismissed as "locker room talk" - and there are people in this forum still cheering the selection of Scaramucci. I don't know where the tipping point is for some, but I don't think that would be it.
Probably right. But I do think it's a little different now as the Access Hollywood thing did have some reacting like our Governor Bill Haslam who said Trump should drop out the race. But most I saw were more on the "stay the course" we have to defeat Hillary angle. This feels a little different as it's not a contest anymore. They can pull back support and there guy has still won. But that's probably thinking too simply on my part.
Koya
Footballguy
Koya
Footballguy
TobiasFunke
Footballguy
Best edited thread title ever? Best edited thread title ever.