Keller @ Large: Paranoia Reigns Supreme In White House
BOSTON (CBS) - If you haven't read White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci's interview with the New Yorker magazine, it's quite a document.
It's also riddled with extreme vulgarity, so be warned.
Here are the key points:
Scaramucci is obsessed with stopping the profuse White House leaks to the press, and called up New Yorker reporter Ryan Lizza to ask who had leaked him the info about a White House dinner with the president, Sean Hannity, and a former Fox News executive.
Of course, Lizza wouldn't disclose his source, which set Scaramucci off on a tirade in which he threatened to fire the entire White House communications team, and zeroed in on chief of staff Reince Priebus as a key leaker.
"He'll be asked to resign very shortly," he said, before describing Priebus in terms that would make a longshoreman blush.
Scaramucci then turned to chief strategist Steve Bannon, who he described as overly self-interested and trying to build his own brand "off the [blankety-blank] strength of the President."
And the tsunami of profanity continued from there.
Lizza reports that later, Scaramucci called him and changed his story, claiming that he really wants to work with Priebus to stop leaks, not can him.
So, what do we learn from this episode?
That the White House communications director doesn't know how journalism works; that paranoia reigns supreme in the White House these days; and that this was the President's idea of a professional who could improve his public image.
Perhaps this plan will work.
Or maybe this is just another big step toward a very unhappy ending.