Trump’s Hapless Press Secretaries

By J. Michael Willard

Perhaps there is no valley so low as Donald Trump’s collection of press secretaries, a generally honorable profession to which I once belonged.

I thought no press secretary could be so shallow as Trump’s first, the comical stumblebum Sean Spicer, who asked us not to believe our lying eyes on crowd sizes at Trump’s first inauguration.

But then came Sarah Huckabee Sanders, now the governor of Arkansas, who proved the Peter Principle that people tend to rise to a level of respective incompetence.

Those selections hinted that the Grifter-in-Chief would name the worst of the lot for his spanking new administration, Karoline Leavitt, a cheerleader who spews lies like they are coming from a Gatling gun.

She inaugurated her Press Secretary career by telling a whopper that US$50 million in taxpayer dollars had been intended for use in funding condoms in the Gaza Strip. Wrong.

Several Presidential press secretaries have been my friends.

Pierre Salinger (President Kennedy), with whom I worked at Burson-Marsteller; my fellow Georgian, Jody Powell (President Carter); and my one-time US Senate staff colleague, Mike McCurry (President Clinton).

Each wore the title with dignity, aplomb, and — this surely helps — a healthy dose of humor.

To dissuade any thought of partisanship, I add Marlin Fritzwater, press secretary…