Yesterday, David Ignatius, the award-winning columnist for the Washington Post published an editorial about Bob Woodward’s new book, Fear: Trump in the White House. Entitled, “What a Baby,” Ignatius’s editorial shares his opinion about the book and how:
Woodward’s recounting of Trump’s conversations is a study in character, or lack of it. The president’s vanity, pettiness and meanness of spirit were evident already in his tweets and public statements. But here is the annotated version, as told to Woodward by Trump’s aides, replete with enough F-bombs to stock an arsenal of profanity.
Note the words I emphasized in the above excerpt. As most of you know, I have the mouth of a sailor and the F-bomb often seems like my go-to verb, noun, adjective, preposition, conjunction and interjection. I confess that this is an inappropriate habit, borne of laziness and, well, depression.
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But I’m not the President of the United States or someone who works in the White House, so I was a bit incredulous about Ignatius’s F-bomb assessment. Late Tuesday afternoon, I received my copy of Fear and following are F-bomb excerpts from the first 42 pages. Please note that I did not have time or room to include all 25+ F-bombs from those pages.
Page 1 — Bannon is the former White House chief strategist
Page 4
Page 13 — Ailes is the former head of Fox News
Page 20 — (yeah, where the f#ck IS Jared?)
Page 40
Page 42
Sorry that the last image is out of focus and ironically dark. I just got weary. But here’s my point: I’ve only read 42 pages of this book and trust me on this — the arsenal of F-bombs is not even close to being the F-bomb that alarms me most about this Presidency. That F-bomb is on the cover of the book. All to say, be afraid. Be very afraid.
When she learned that I had written a post about this book, Adrienne said, “But I thought you weren’t going to write about politics in Spark and Spitfire.”
“The post is about a book,” I replied.
Kinda of a lame response, I admit. That being said, I have read half of Woodward’s previous books, and those nine were about some aspect of the nine Presidents of the United States he has written about. In those nine books, the only president who comes close to filling the profanity arsenal YUGELY is Richard Nixon. Vice President Dick Cheney is a close second.
I’m now on page 74 and my reaction as I continue to read these pages about the current president is: WTF?!
Let’s bring up the E-word: evangelicals; the evangelicals who adamantly support this President. What does the Bible say about the language Christians ought to use? Here’s one verse:
“Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen” (Ephesians 4:29).
I copied and pasted this verse from an editorial by James Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family — a YUGE supporter of the current president. Not that this is saying much, but I, at least, admit my hypocrisy.
There is a limit on my use of profanity: please note that I have not actually used the president’s name.
Out of curiosity, I read the last paragraph in the book:
“But in the man and the presidency, Dowd [Trump’s former lawyer] had seen the tragic flaw. In the political back-and-forth, the evasions, the denials, the tweeting, the obscuring, crying ‘Fake News,” the indignation, Trump had one overriding problem that Dowd knew but could not bring himself to say to the president: ‘You’re a fucking liar.'”
Oh Sharon, you are so right. The times are scary; the person occupying the oval office is scary; the language is scary. What concerns me is the fear puts us in the primitive brain of fight/flight/freeze. We just cannot stay there or we add to the already dark energy. The dark can be so mesmerizing. I do not have “answers” and I know I need to look for, seek, and trust the Light.
Such a thoughtful comment, Charlotte. Thank you.
It’s not easy to find light when some of us live so close to the darkness emanating from the White House.
E(vangelicals) and F(foul-mouthed President). How did the two ever become as close as they are in the alphabet? The E’s, it seems, will put up with anything–ANYTHING–as long as the F will assure them that he will support a pro-life agenda and allow them to retain their phobias about people who are different from them. But the E’s sacred book loves people who are different! And the E’s sacred book, while it certainly affirms the sanctity of life, nowhere tries to spell out precisely when God’s knitting us together in our mothers’ wombs marks the start of life we can call human. That same book certainly does talk–a lot!–about caring for all the human lives that are struggling across this planet, maybe especially about caring for those who live in s-hole countries!
Thank you for this thoughtful E-F piece.
Preach it, sister Carol.
I wonder what the E’s think of F’s comment about Puerto Rico today. Another s-hole country? That’s probably what F thinks because he can’t countenance that Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory. After all, they don’t speak English there, the skin color of its citizens is brown and it’s an ISLAND. You know, surrounded by water. Who knew?
One more thing: F was once asked what his favorite book was and he said the Bible followed by The Art of the Deal. Let us pause for a moment. F’s favorite book is the sacred Bible. Can he even spell B-I-B-L-E?
Needless to say, 2 Corinthians walk into a bar . . .
Thank you for the synopsis. You are actually providing a service to those of us who are curious about the book, but may never get around to reading it.
A friend tried to buy a copy at Barnes & Noble only to find that the entire million copies of the first edition were sold out and it is back ordered.
So even if I wanted to read it now, it is not an option. Thanks for helping a sister out with your review!
Saw a Facebook meme yesterday that had a photo of a Bible with one of those “Signed Copy” stickers on it. That is surely the edition which the POTUS owns.
I think Jesus once worked for POTUS.