The fire and fury of political malpractice

The singular job of the staff of any elected official is to assist in the success of that official’s agenda. Simple and measurable, staff are tapped with many duties but at the end of the day, they will only be judged on how effective they are in facilitating their bosses’ goals. To fail in this is to surely be shown the door. And like the survival of the fittest, this might be harsh but it is simply a political reality.

So, this leads me to the vortex of top staff, insiders, advisers and consultants that orbit the president of the United States as predictably as the earth circles the sun every 24 hours. Why did none of them question the sanity of embedding Michael Wolff, a known salacious reporter, in the West Wing for nearly a year? A reporter who would go unchecked, unchallenged and unfettered to make his own assumptions about a nontraditional fledgling presidency.

Let me be extremely clear. If for no other reason than national security, shouldn’t any of them have questioned why this quiet bald man was sitting in the corner with a recording device like Gollum with his Precious?

As a political consultant and former staffer, let me give you an insider’s look into many of the meetings that author Wolff had a front-row seat to witness. Like many nightly conversations around your own family’s dinner table, daily meetings and briefings among staff can get heated, loud and personal.

And with this White House, which often operates more like an episode of The Apprentice, I have to believe meetings were filled with YUGE drama and BIGLY cliff hangers.

All of this would be great for a tell-all book, but possibly not a realistic snapshot of the actual goings on of the Trump administration.

Am I suggesting that the White House isn’t in an alarming Trumpian disarray as the best seller “Fire and Fury” suggests? No, we have no real metric of knowing if the Oval Office is more like the fictional Game of Thrones or Trump’s successful reality show, The Apprentice. We are left in the dark because Wolff was left unchecked by the president’s staff. Wolff was allowed to wonder the White House, draw his own conclusions and paint the president with his own broad strokes.

Look, not all reporters are created equal. I’ve hired many good ones and I’ve fired some very poor ones. But one thing is always true, the very best reporters follow long-standing rules of journalism that Wolff has a history of ignoring. I don’t believe this discounts all of his work, but it does mean “Fire and Fury” comes with baggage that shouldn’t be ignored by readers. And it shouldn’t have been ignored by the White House staff that remained idle as Wolff sat absorbing pieces of conversations like well-used kitchen sponge.

If your doctor performed as poorly as those in place to support the president, you’d sue them for malpractice — and you would win! Clearly, any naive staffer who would foolishly invite an author into the president’s orbit without accountability is equally guilty of malpractice.

Sadly, there is no lawsuit that will undo the damage and impact “Fire and Fury” will have on the Trump presidency and his ultimate place in history.