Distress signal
Dear editor:
Some years ago, I was at a performance by an excellent ventriloquist. He was so good that I rarely saw any movement of his lips. And he said some things that were both shocking and entertaining.
As a young person who was very gullible, I watched the “figure” on his knee (the entertainer did not like having his assistant called a “dummy”) mouthing everything from eternal truths to fake news. Nobody blamed the dummy for anything that passed through his lips, because we knew the source. But the source got away with it, because his words seemed to be coming from the dummy. Wonderful setup!
Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, is nobody’s dummy. But every time I see him at work, I have to stop and realize that he is indeed a figure on the president’s knee. We hear some outlandish pontifications, and sometimes we fail to realize that they are trial balloons from the source. If things come out wrong, they are the products of the dummy’s mouth and mind. He just did not get it straight or quote the president accurately, and he apologizes.
So, if there is a momentary misunderstanding about his (combining source and dummy) brilliant comparison involving Hitler’s use of chemical weapons, we may immediately blame the dummy, but we need to consider the source — and he is not the source.
Spicer’s latest trial balloon is fascinating in its erudition. He attacks the Obama administration for the Flynn fiasco. True, Flynn was “vetted” by President Obama’s people, and they are the ones who decided that he was not suitable. Fast forward. Our new president wanted Flynn’s services. Spicer tells us that there was no reason for this administration to check him out, because he had already been checked out by the Obama administration. Go figure! Let me get this straight: Do you trust the former president or don’t you?
The crooked press reported recently that at a televised briefing, Spicer had his American flag lapel pin upside down. Everyone knows that flying the flag in that position is a distress signal.
Was this an unspoken sign from the ventriloquist? Are we really in trouble?
C.G. Smith Hot Springs