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" As Donald Trump’s presidency careens wildly from accusing President Barack Obama of wiretapping Trump Tower to backing an unpopular Obamacare replacement plan, a new scapegoat is needed pronto. A recent Politico piece about how the knives are out for Chief of Staff Reince Priebus foreshadows a possible shake-up.
Priebus’s political enemies are no doubt responsible for spreading some of this negative speculation. On the heels of then-National Security Adviser Michael Flynn’s ouster, Newsmax Media CEO Christopher Ruddy suggested Priebus was in over his head—and Breitbart started hinting that Priebus was about to be fired.
They presumably wanted not only to avenge Flynn but also to shift the balance of power away from the mainstream/establishment wing—and toward the nationalistic/populist wing. But once you jettison the hidden agendas, you are essentially left with two opposing theories with which to judge Priebus’s brief tenure:
1) Priebus was supposed to tame the circus, and he isn’t getting the job done, or
2) Holy crap! This presidency would be a #### show without Reince Priebus.
The first theory—that he hasn’t been able to tame the circus—simply holds Priebus to unrealistic expectations.
Trump is a 70-year-old billionaire who has gotten to the top by doing things his way and damn the consequences. To enable his behavior, he has constructed a flat organization that discourages a clear chain of command, hierarchy, clarity, or sanity.
Of course, whether it’s The Donald or The Gipper in charge, West Wing staffers always want unlimited presidential access, and they resent any gatekeeper who tries to limit it. There’s another line in that Politico piece that resonated for me: “They described a micromanager [Priebus] who sprints from one West Wing meeting to another, inserting himself into conversations big and small and leaving many staffers with the impression that he’s trying to block their access to Trump.”
Well, golly gee whiz, boys and girls: that’s what Chiefs of Staff do! That’s their job! The war against Priebus is an explicit pushback against any kind of adult supervision in the West Wing. It’s firing the mean teacher and letting the four-year-olds take over the preschool. "
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/03/09/fire-reince-priebus-seriously-he-s-the-only-grown-up-there.html?via=twitter_page
Priebus’s political enemies are no doubt responsible for spreading some of this negative speculation. On the heels of then-National Security Adviser Michael Flynn’s ouster, Newsmax Media CEO Christopher Ruddy suggested Priebus was in over his head—and Breitbart started hinting that Priebus was about to be fired.
They presumably wanted not only to avenge Flynn but also to shift the balance of power away from the mainstream/establishment wing—and toward the nationalistic/populist wing. But once you jettison the hidden agendas, you are essentially left with two opposing theories with which to judge Priebus’s brief tenure:
1) Priebus was supposed to tame the circus, and he isn’t getting the job done, or
2) Holy crap! This presidency would be a #### show without Reince Priebus.
The first theory—that he hasn’t been able to tame the circus—simply holds Priebus to unrealistic expectations.
Trump is a 70-year-old billionaire who has gotten to the top by doing things his way and damn the consequences. To enable his behavior, he has constructed a flat organization that discourages a clear chain of command, hierarchy, clarity, or sanity.
Of course, whether it’s The Donald or The Gipper in charge, West Wing staffers always want unlimited presidential access, and they resent any gatekeeper who tries to limit it. There’s another line in that Politico piece that resonated for me: “They described a micromanager [Priebus] who sprints from one West Wing meeting to another, inserting himself into conversations big and small and leaving many staffers with the impression that he’s trying to block their access to Trump.”
Well, golly gee whiz, boys and girls: that’s what Chiefs of Staff do! That’s their job! The war against Priebus is an explicit pushback against any kind of adult supervision in the West Wing. It’s firing the mean teacher and letting the four-year-olds take over the preschool. "
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/03/09/fire-reince-priebus-seriously-he-s-the-only-grown-up-there.html?via=twitter_page
