We continue our parade of soup cans today, expressing our usual amazement at the slippery stylings of the guy who says he's president but sure doesn't act like one. I suppose you've heard about this one…
Matt Pottinger, who serves on the National Security Council, gave a "background briefing" to a large number of reporters. It was about the state of U.S. relations with North Korea and the possibility of rescheduling the canceled peace talks.
A background briefing is where some government official gives info to members of the press and they can report it but are not supposed to release his or her name. I'm not entirely certain where this practice started and the ethics of it might be arguable but it is certainly not new or rare. In this case, Pottinger initiated this briefing, gave it from the podium of the White House briefing room and many audio recordings of it exist.
Reporters reported what was said without naming Pottinger. Trump's tweet on those stories read as follows…
The Failing @nytimes quotes "a senior White House official," who doesn't exist, as saying "even if the meeting were reinstated, holding it on June 12 would be impossible, given the lack of time and the amount of planning needed." WRONG AGAIN! Use real people, not phony sources.
Lately as I read this kind of thing, I imagine a guy who's been relentlessly cheating on his wife, maybe even with a porn star. He knows that the lady next door is about to tell his wife about it and all he can think to do is to go to his wife and say, "That neighbor lady! She's insane! She's a pathological liar! You can't believe a word she says!"
Because Trump knows there's a lot of very bad stuff coming…