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Wednesday, August 9, 2017 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
The Bunkhouse
Chronicle
Craig Rullman
Columnist
Arrivederci,
Scaramucci
I, for one, am going to
miss Anthony “The Mooch”
Scaramucci. If you didn’t
know, The Mooch was
sacked as White House
Communications Director
after an explosive and “col-
orful” interview with Ryan
Lizza, a writer for The New
Yorker.
The Mooch, raised on
Long Island, was brought
to us by Tufts University,
Harvard, Goldman Sachs,
and later SkyBridge Capital.
He was a fundraiser and
supporter for both President
Obama and Hillary Clinton,
but may have fallen out
of favor somewhat when
he famously asked Obama
when he was “going to
stop whacking Wall Street
like a piñata.” Later, he
endorsed Scott Walker, and
then Jeb Bush, and told
the Fox Business Network
that Trump was going to
be the “President of the
Queen County’s Bullies’
Association.”
Somehow Scaramucci,
author of such noted tomes
as “Goodbye Gordon
Gekko, How to Find Your
Fortune Without Losing
Your Soul,” “Hopping
Over The Rabbit Hole” and
“The Little Book of Hedge
Funds,” (I couldn’t make
this up if I tried) became
Trump’s main communica-
tions man after calling the
President a “hack politician”
and “anti-American” during
the campaign.
What endeared The
Mooch to many of us was
the absolute sincerity with
which he showed up to
work, even though most
everyone in the world could
see that he was exactly, 100
percent, without question,
the wrong guy for the job.
Somehow, I have to
believe even The Mooch
knew this. But then again, in
the land of monstrous egos
and overwhelming hubris,
maybe he was as tone
deaf as the president who
appointed him.
Scaramucci was so
totally wrong for the job,
so obviously unprepared
in both intellect and tem-
perament, one could only
scramble to recover from a
sudden onset of apoplexy
at the announcement of his
elevation.
But The Mooch, for all of
his six days of hand-waving
bombast and immaculate
suits, did give us a gigantic
gift we can be thankful for.
He gave us, forever, a new
term to describe a certain
acrobatic feat of auto-fella-
tio: The Bannon.
What’s fabulous about
“The Bannon” is how it can
be deployed as a descrip-
tion, a directive, or a meta-
phor. We can also mix it up,
as in “The Steve,” or “The
Steve Bannon.”
As something of a tradi-
tionalist, however, I think
I’m going to stick with just
The Bannon, for now, and
enjoy a loud laugh every
time I think of the actual
Steve Bannon knocking
about in the West Wing in
an ill-fitting suit, cradling
a sharpie and a whiteboard,
looking precisely as if he
just woke up under a bench
in the train station.
The Mooch’s run as
Comms Director was not
the shortest one ever. That
honor goes to Jack Koehler,
nee Wolfgang Koehler, who
was born in Dresden, moved
to the U.S. after World War
II, and changed his name
to John. Koehler became a
journalist, and ultimately a
bureau chief, general man-
ager, and managing direc-
tor of the Associated Press.
He was pals with Ronald
Reagan and lasted 11 days as
Reagan’s Communications
Director after it was discov-
ered, or revealed, or leaked,
or however those things
work, that he had once been
a member of the Deutsches
Jungvolk, a Nazi youth
group.
Koehler, who at least
had legitimate bonafides in
the world of directing com-
munications, was caught on
his hind foot, but tried to
recover by saying that the
group he belonged to was
“the Boy Scouts run by the
Nazi party.”
Speaking of tone deaf.
It would have been
interesting to be in General
Kelly’s office — remem-
ber, in case you missed
last week’s episode, Chief
of Staff Priebus was disap-
peared after the Sean Spicer
immolation and the Mooch
elevation, replaced by Ned
Stark of Winterfell, I mean
General Kelly — when he
booted The Mooch.
I would like to have seen
how Harvard Law stacked
up against Quantico, and
whether or not The Mooch
took his beating from the
White House’s newest
enforcer with or without
whimpers.
As sad as all this is,
and it truly is bad for the
republic, don’t worry about
Scaramucci. He will land
on both feet, no doubt per-
fectly astride the rabbit
hole he wrote about. He
knows people, and doggone
it, many of them like him,
even if, as Felix Salmon
from Reuters described his
pre-White House financier
activities: “He is putting
people into hedge funds that
really shouldn’t be invested
in hedge funds. He has this
extremely expensive smile
and very good hair, and
they trust him. And to the
degree that he’s accom-
plishing it, he’s hurting
America.”
So there’s that to con-
sider. And at any rate,
it’s just a fact that politi-
cal life-expectancy around
this White House is short.
You may recall that former
National Security Advisor
Mike Flynn made it 23 days
before he was forced to
resign for allegedly cavort-
ing with Russians.
But there was something
special about Scaramucci.
I’m not sure if it was the
frightening thought that
there may be no adults left
in the White House, the
inescapable and inevitable
air of Mafioso sleaze, or
what it was exactly. Maybe
it was all of that. But at the
very least, the Scaramucci
era made for fascinating
entertainment.
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