Oh, Sean Spicer, the White House's four-Pinocchio press secretary, is this the end? We know we're not supposed to "just yell out questions" but rather "raise our hands like big boys and girls", but is it really, truly over?
It seems like yesterday – maybe you would insist it was yesterday – that President Donald Trump drafted you from the Republican National Committee farm team for the Big Show. There you were, in the White House the day after Inauguration Day, saying, "This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration – period." It was your introduction to the United States, and the United States' fact checkers, when you noted that January 20th, 2017, was "the first time in our nation's history that floor coverings have been used to protect the grass on the Mall".
You gave us "the president's tweet speaks for itself", "That is called a bollard wall. That is called a levee wall," "stop shaking your head" and a new term, "Holocaust centre". You gave us Melissa McCarthy playing you on Saturday Night Live. Or was it the other way around?
You gave us Melissa McCarthy playing you on Saturday Night Live. Or was it the other way around?
How you defended Trump. When he stood before a memorial to Central Intelligence Agency officers killed on duty and lied about his inaugural crowds, you said the CIA employees "gave him a five-minute standing ovation at the end in a display of their patriotism and their enthusiasm for his presidency." When he fired his FBI director, James Comey, you had Trump's back from (near) the White House shrubbery, off camera, in the dark. When you made the president angry, and he denied you an audience with Pope Francis, you soldiered on.
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But now you are gone, because on Friday the boss finally went too far. He appointed Anthony Scaramucci, aka the Mooch, to be communications director. A man with tailored suits. A financier. A Fox News contributor who also gets along with the "Fake News" journalists.
With that it was all too much. Oh, Spicey, you lasted six months and a day. Or are those “inaccurate numbers”? You were not loved by reporters – or would you disagree, because “proceedings were intentionally framed in a way, in one particular tweet, to minimise the enormous support that had gathered”?
From the beginning, when an apprehensive United States wondered what was ahead, you stood behind the lectern at the White House and lied. Even though lots of people do it now, you were a trailblazer, and nobody can take that away from you. Let's not say goodbye. Let's just say you have no further comment. – The Editorial Board
© New York Times