From The Times (of London):
January 14 2018, 12:01am, The Sunday Times
Rages, scandal, chaos: it’s a normal White House
Niall Ferguson
The shape of Trump’s tenure is not unique; just look at Clinton’s first year
‘Once Trump came into the Oval Office with a newspaper folded into quarters showing some story based on a leak from the White House. ‘What the f*** is this?’ Trump had shouted. Presidential flare-ups were common enough, but Trump often would not let an incident go, roaring on for too long before calming down.”
“A joke among Trump’s aides was that it was better to f*** up really big rather than have a series of daily minor mistakes, since Trump identified with the celebrated, all-points f***-up.”
“The White House problems . . . were organisation and discipline. The staff was too often like a soccer league of 10-year-olds.”
You are probably thinking — and I really don’t blame you — that you have read more than enough about Michael Wolff’s explosive bestselling book Fire and Fury, the core thesis of which (that President Donald Trump is a retarded man-child) received fresh support last week from the president’s own potty mouth and Twitter feed.
In fact, all three of those quotations are taken from another book about another president’s first year in office — The Agenda: Inside the Clinton White House, which Bob Woodward published in 1994. I just changed the president’s surname.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/rages-scandal-chaos-its-a-normal-white-house-3l2knqwmr
Rages, scandal, chaos: it’s a normal White House
Niall Ferguson
The shape of Trump’s tenure is not unique; just look at Clinton’s first year
‘Once Trump came into the Oval Office with a newspaper folded into quarters showing some story based on a leak from the White House. ‘What the f*** is this?’ Trump had shouted. Presidential flare-ups were common enough, but Trump often would not let an incident go, roaring on for too long before calming down.”
“A joke among Trump’s aides was that it was better to f*** up really big rather than have a series of daily minor mistakes, since Trump identified with the celebrated, all-points f***-up.”
“The White House problems . . . were organisation and discipline. The staff was too often like a soccer league of 10-year-olds.”
You are probably thinking — and I really don’t blame you — that you have read more than enough about Michael Wolff’s explosive bestselling book Fire and Fury, the core thesis of which (that President Donald Trump is a retarded man-child) received fresh support last week from the president’s own potty mouth and Twitter feed.
In fact, all three of those quotations are taken from another book about another president’s first year in office — The Agenda: Inside the Clinton White House, which Bob Woodward published in 1994. I just changed the president’s surname.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/rages-scandal-chaos-its-a-normal-white-house-3l2knqwmr
