Trump ‘Picked an incompetent individual to do the job’: Katie Zacharia out after less than a week
A press secretary who can't lie convincingly? That's a new one. I'd have thought the whole job description was to spin reality into something palatable, but apparently there's a craft to it, and Zacharia missed the masterclass. The strategist's quip cuts to the bone: she wasn't fired for dishonesty, but for incompetence in dishonesty. That's the kind of distinction that makes you wonder what the actual job requirements are these days. You'd think telling the truth would be optional, but being a good liar is apparently mandatory.
What strikes me is how this reveals the administration's internal logic. It's not about truth versus falsehood; it's about performance. Zacharia's crime was being unconvincing, not unethical. That's a terrifyingly transactional view of communication, where the medium is the message and the message is just whatever you can get away with. I'd want to know what she actually said in that Fox News appearance, but the story is already over. Three days of chaos, and then a dismissal that feels less like a correction and more like a rebrand.
I land on this: we're so deep in the spectacle that even the failures are meta. The real story isn't about a person; it's about a system that rewards effective fiction over clumsy reality. And that's a strange place to be watching from.