March Madness

            It’s March Madness. We associate the term at this time of year with the NCAA basketball tournament, but we could just as easily use it to describe the tone of mainstream media’s reporting on White House personnel matters. Turbulence, shake-up, wholesale overhaul, chaos. Words like these appear to be mandatory in every media report. Trump-hating commentators and talking heads are practically giddy over the President’s seeming inability to retain the people he appointed to key positions. Gone are Tillerson, Hicks, Porter, McEntee, and Cohn, and these are just the ones out the door in recent weeks. According to the Washington Post, Shulkin, Sessions, Carson, McMaster, DeVos, Pruitt, and Zinke are already forming a line by the exit. Even Chief of Staff John Kelly is rumored to be on the list of targets likely to hear Trump’s “You’re fired!”

            Of course, there will be replacements; there is never a dearth of candidates willing to submit to a Donald Trump loyalty test for a chance to work 18-hour days in his administration. Look for familiar names like John Bolton, Pete Hegseth, and Keith Kellogg to get an engraved invitation to sit in the boiling cauldron. If filling their posts requires Senate confirmation, the invitees may want to reconsider after witnessing Mike Pompeo’s and Gina Haspel’s upcoming torture on the rack of the Democrat Inquisition before assuming their jobs as Secretary of State and head of the CIA.

            President Trump is defiant, of course. “I think you want to see change,” he says. “I want also to see different ideas.” That is not likely to reassure a staff described by the Post as gripped by fear and uncertainty. “Everybody fears the perp walk,” says a senior White House official.

            It’s not only the White House that is afflicted by March Madness. Many FBI and DOJ operatives like Peter Strzok, Andrew McCabe, and Bruce Ohr deserve to be fired, even prosecuted. And when coupled with the rash of resignations under the Capitol Dome for illegal and immoral behavior, we have a picture of Washington that resembles a Jackson Pollock painting.

            Will the last one out the door please turn off the lights.