Trump’s Petticoat Government...Ross Douthat

[mystery-ak]

Trump’s Petticoat Government

Ross Douthat JAN. 6, 2018

Incapacity in the chief executive is not a new thing in American history. James Garfield spent half of his short presidency dying slowly from a gunshot wound. Richard Nixon’s condition in his final days was dire enough that his secretary of defense effectively cut him out of the nuclear chain of command. Woodrow Wilson’s stroke and his wife’s influence thereafter produced the immortal — if, of course, highly #problematic — complaint from one of Wilson’s senatorial critics that “we have a petticoat government! … Mrs. Wilson is president!”

What’s different about Donald Trump is that his inability to handle the weight and responsibility of his office is not something that crept up gradually, not something imposed by an assassin’s bullet or a stroke or a late-in-the-presidency crisis. Instead it’s been a defining feature of his administration from Day 1 — and indeed was obvious during the campaign that elected him.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/06/opinion/sunday/trumps-petticoat-government.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fopinion&action=click&contentCollection=opinion&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=3&pgtype=sectionfront

[Cyber Liberty]

So unless Robert Mueller has more goods than I expect, we are going to live for the next few years in the way that America lived during the waning days of Nixon, the end of the Wilson administration, and perhaps at other moments known only to presidential inner circles — with our own equivalent of the petticoat government, which in this case includes military uniforms, dress suits and whatever outfits Ivanka and Kellyanne Conway favor (but not, any longer, the layering of collared shirts perfected by Steve Bannon).

My tears flow for you, Mr. Editorial Writer.  Like a river.

[WingNot]