Here's how their White House Bureau Chief, Phillip Rucker, opens his news report in today's paper:
For two years, they tried to tutor and confine him. They taught him history, explained nuances and gamed out reverberations. They urged careful deliberation, counseled restraint and prepared talking points to try to sell mainstream actions to a restive conservative base hungry for disruption. But in the end, they failed.
For President Trump, the era of containment is over.
One by one, the seasoned advisers seen as bulwarks against Trump’s most reckless impulses have been cast aside or, as Defense Secretary Jim Mattis did Thursday, resigned in an extraordinary act of protest. What Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) once dubbed an “adult day care center” has gone out of business.
Trump will enter his third year as president unbound — at war with his perceived enemies, determined to follow through on the hard-line promises of his insurgent campaign and fearful of any cleavage in his political coalition.
So far, the result has been disarray. The federal government is shut down. Stock markets are in free fall. Foreign allies are voicing alarm. Hostile powers such as Russia are cheering. And Republican lawmakers once afraid of crossing this president are now openly critical.At the same time refreshing and trite, what Rucker expresses is what's been in plain view for any but the most determined Trump cultists to see since Dolt 45 descended the golden escalator at Trump Tower. It's not labeled "analysis" or couched in "some say" or "on the other hand" or other journalistic fig leafs, but in the facts of Trump's puerility, his impulsive recklessness, and the disarray of his shambolic regime. Rucker later goes on to quote the pithy remark made by Gen. Barry McCaffrey, "This is a rogue presidency," something that was evident from Day 1 with Dolt 45's "American carnage" inaugural and crowd mirage.
Why has it taken so long to get to the point where journalists (or at least this one) finally report facts that have been obvious for ever? Was it the unprecedented confluence of events of the last week, especially the Mattis resignation, that convinced some that it was time to report the truth in no uncertain terms? Maybe, but at the same time, as the great Jay Rosen points out, others =cough= New York Times =cough= are still in the maintain access/ both sides/ don't rock the boat mode, even after the Mattis debacle:
Almost feels like one of the audiences for the Mattis letter is both sides journalists who now cannot ignore that someone on the President's team is saying what they are persuaded of and yet reluctant to say themselves. He's not just "unpredictable," but reckless and incompetent. https://t.co/xkLBuLwudZ— Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) December 21, 2018
So, we won't pop the champagne corks just yet. One giant leap for a man, one small step for journalism.
