He got off to a bad start, coming out the day after the recent poorly-attended inauguration to declaim to a skeptical press corps that the ceremonies drew, in fact, a gathering of humanity seventeen times the size of Woodstock, with the New Year's crowd from Times Square thrown in. He was put in a tough spot, forced to repeat spurious information to balm the ego of the new guy.
In so doing that day, Spicer came off like a substitute shop teacher who was brought in after the tough guys in Metal Shop soldered Mr Pipgrass's pants to his BVDs and was told to crack down right away. He got off to the worst start of any presidential press secretary in our history, and never really got his footing behind the podium. And it didn't help that as the press hurled scorn and invective at him, his sardonic boss was sprinkling disdain all over him as well. Within days, Melissa McCarthy was lining up to knock him every Saturday Night Live and the country roared as "Spicey" came to life as a Barney Fife-like caricature.
It seemed that things really hit their nadir when the traveling White House road show played the Vatican. I'm not Catholic, but I understand that meeting the pope is, without question, the top goal for anyone of that faith. And it must have crushed Spicer when his boss cruelly did not allow him to meet the pontiff as much as it would have hurt me had I not been allowed a private audience with Ernest Tubb at the Civic Center in 1967.
I think that's when the public tide turned and people started to feel sorry for Sean, and it wasn't that much longer that he was replaced by someone's hard-to-employ daughter out of Arkansas.
And then - this happened! Spicer appeared on the Jimmy Kimmel show and played along with the jibes, and then here he was on last night's Emmy awards telecast to the surprise of all. He rolled out behind a podium, just as Melissa did, and he mocked himself with, "This will be the largest audience to witness an Emmy’s, period, both in-person and around the world." And the audience in the theater and at home laughed, this time with him, and not at him.
A lot of times we start out in a new venture tripping all over ourselves and landing right on our asterisks.* If someone is keeping score, I'm sure they could tell you that I am a world leader in making an ass-embly of myself, and one thing I have learned is, if they're laughing, don't get mad, laugh with them!
Spicer seems to have learned that, and now we might as well all go to Amazon to pre-order the book he will certainly have up for sale in time for Christmas.
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