Sleazy, slimy, clueless, crooked Fourth Estate disparages The Donald. Says Prez Trump did not have best words on amazing first day. Sad!

(How many characters was that?)

“Twenty minutes into his presidency, Donald Trump, who is always claiming to have made, or to be about to make, astonishing history, had done so. Living down to expectations, he had delivered the most dreadful inaugural address in history. Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s White House counselor, had promised that the speech would be ‘elegant.’ This is not the adjective that came to mind as he described ‘American carnage.’ That was a phrase the likes of which has never hitherto been spoken at an inauguration.” – George Will, conservative political commentator

“Yet again, he divided the United States into us vs. them…. American carnage! Even the heavens seemed sad. The moment Trump began his address, the skies opened and plastic ponchos unfurled.” – Dana Milbank, Washington Post

“If President Donald Trump had simply added an angry, finger-pointing scolding of the media and a ‘build that wall!’ call-and-response to his inaugural address Friday, it would have been virtually indistinguishable from one of his campaign speeches. Instead of new Trump – humble, generous, realistic – we got the same old Trump – vain, churlish, naive.” – Eric Zorn, Chicago Tribune

“Though expectations couldn’t have been terribly high, the opening moments of Mr. Trump’s presidency were beyond disappointing. He spoke to a nation in need of moving past the divisiveness that, not so incidentally, was his hallmark during the campaign…. It was hard to make sense of Mr. Trump’s distorted vision of America’s past and present…. Vainglorious on a podium where other presidents have presented themselves as fellow citizens, preening where they have been humble….” – New York Times editorial board

“In its dark portrayal of a dysfunctional nation gripped by unemployment, poverty and crime, the address echoed the angry speech Trump gave at the Republican National Convention – the one that proclaimed: ‘I alone can fix it.’” – Doyle McManus, Los Angeles Times

“For anyone who hoped that President Trump would use his inaugural address to lower America’s political temperature, or expected that the rancor of 2016 would give way to elevated expressions more typical of, and appropriate to, an Inauguration Day, the new president’s remarks Friday can only be described as a sharp disappointment.” – Washington Post editorial board

“And when he gave his first speech as president—his inaugural address on a dismal and gray day – Trump, no surprise, stuck with the simple and bumperstickerish themes that had brought him to this once improbable point…. Speaking to a sea of white people – who were being protected by a police force that is mostly black – Trump peddled the same big and bold promises he slung during the campaign….” – David Corn, Mother Jones

“He promises power to the people, but the empowered will be his base. There is no unified view of where America needs to go. The gap is wide, the contrast stark. People vary widely in what they believe government should do, and a majority of voters in November did not vote for Donald Trump or the vision he set forth Friday. We had hoped for an olive branch. There was none.” – San Jose Mercury News editorial board

“He had nothing conciliatory or uplifting to say to Americans who have serious concerns about whether he is equipped to handle this job.” – Arizona Republic editorial board

“Not once did he mention the words democracy, or equality, or even the Constitution. And while the clergy who offered prayers frequently invoked the names of God and Jesus, no one disturbed the official piety by reminding the privileged and powerful gathered around the new president that Jesus told his followers, ‘… I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me.’” – Bill Moyers and Michael Winship, BillMoyers.com

“President Trump’s swearing-in was more of a White Lives Matter rally than an inauguration. There were no lofty words or new thoughts, just a polished and toned-down collection of his catchphrases. What was amazing was that he condemned every lawmaker surrounding him, Republican and Democrat alike. It wasn’t so much populism as nationalism. His three-point program of put America first, buy American and hire American was delivered without a single smile. And he was wearing the longest tie I’ve ever seen.” – Willie Brown, San Francisco Chronicle

“The speech was written by Trump personally, according to spokesman Sean Spicer, but it contained echoes of nationalist and almost authoritarian ideas favored by top advisers Steve Bannon and Steven Miller.” – S.V. Date, The Huffington Post

“Americans want instinctively to rally around their president, no matter how hard-fought the preceding campaign. Trump squandered that reflexive national goodwill with his peevish, provocative transition. He similarly squandered the inaugural with a speech singularly lacking in grace, one that will be widely noted and long remembered for its darkness, for words such as ‘ravages’ and ‘tombstones’ and ‘decay.’ That he bracketed the address with clenched-fist salutes perfectly signaled the pugnacious presidency to come…. Trump sank to the occasion.” – Ruth Marcus, Washington Post

“Even his appeals for unity came across as joyless. About the best that can be said for the speech was its brevity; at 16 minutes, it was fitting for someone noted for communicating by tweet. While Trump’s core supporters undoubtedly cheered his anti-establishment message, many other Americans were surely mystified by his bleak portrait of the nation.” – USA Today editorial board

“The magical thinking embodied in Trump’s speech is not a recipe for fixing problems, nor even for addressing them. It is, rather, a primal scream, viscerally satisfying in the short term but masturbatory and useless in the long term. At some point, in the not-distant future, after poverty, unemployment, miseducation, crime and drugs have not magically disappeared, one hopes the people who fell for this act will realize that.” – Leonard Pitts Jr., syndicated columnist

“And then it was over. Donald Trump is president. Wow.” – Gail Collins, New York Times

(January 22, 2017)