The president as puppet: Daily Bullshit, July 7, 2017

Not much in the way of news today, yet, anyway. The sun rose. I haven’t died. But in the Los Angeles Times “Essential Politics” newsletter, David Lauter wrote,

Presidents typically acknowledge no ghostwriters. Even when the wordsmith was clearly visible, White House officials in previous administrations have insisted that the president wrote the initial draft or crafted the final version of his major speeches.

One of the many unique characteristics of the Trump White House is that it has largely dropped that fiction.

Instead, President Trump’s major speeches, like the one he delivered in Warsaw on Thursday, get treated more like those of a reigning monarch: The government writes them, he delivers them. They become policy because he’s spoken them, not necessarily because he has adopted the words as his own.[1]

I’m needing to just let that sit in my head for a while. I’m sure it’s only half the story—if even that. But wow, what an amazing thing to write.


  1. [1]David Lauter to Essential Politics list, “Politics: Trump’s European trip is no break,” Los Angeles Times, July 7, 2017, http://www.latimes.com/

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