The Duce pitches a shocking public fit by proxy

Sean Spicer's shouted press briefing

Over an hour late, my guess is the staff spent that hour trying to cool Trump down, and it just didn't work.

So Sean came out and acted the Trump role.

He did a hell of a job, too.

The briefing was almost entirely composed of a shouted tirade at the press for filling the world with "fake news."

Spicer was literally shouting at the press for lying about the sizes of the crowds yesterday and today and lying that some statuette of MLK was removed from the White House.

Trump's crowds were much bigger, he angrily and loudly insisted, on the authority of Trump, himself.

As for the other, it was an error yesterday for which the reporter quickly apologized and whose apology was quickly and coolly accepted on Twitter by Sean Spicer, also yesterday.

The only other story was Trump's visit to CIA headquarters where he was greeted warmly and, according to Sean, got a five minute standing ovation - all going to show the stories of recent weeks portraying enmity between Trump and the American intelligence community were all just more outrageous media lies.

And for good measure, Sean yelled at the press that the Trump White House would call them out in future with equal vigor on all their lying attacks on him and the American people whom he represents and on whose behalf he intends to govern.

When he was done yelling at the reporters he stalked out of the meeting without so much as noticing their shouted questions.

I wonder how many Trump voters will either accept the Trump version of reality, despite their own eyes, or not mind and perhaps even enjoy this furious, blatantly lying, outrageous and, one might almost say, Mussolini-like attack on the press?

Let me be very clear.

This does not bode well for Trump's behavior under pressure in the international arena.

I am frankly afraid of what might happen when this disgraceful thug, this foolish clown gets that 3 am call.

And it does not bode well for the First Amendment.

Working the refs like this, Trump and his allies can intimidate and bully the press into dhimmitude harmful to us all.

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