BALDERDASH & GISH-GALLOP

And oh, what a tangled web we weave.

PRESS SECRETARIES

FOR PRESIDENT TINY HANDED, CHEETO FACED, FERRET WEARING, SHITGIBBON

It takes a very special kind of person to take the job of talking to the Washington press corps and maintaining a straight face while parroting The Lyin’ King. You have to be able to say, “Yes, Daddy, a man came in through the window and jumped on the bed and it broke”, knowing that you're lying. But it's so much more effective if you actually believe it. Let's see who's who.

SEAN (He’s got the biggliest crowd) SPICER

Not sure why these people feel the need to establish themselves as factual black holes from day one, but Sean was no exception.

Generally, when someone ends a sentence by saying the word “period”, they are a flaming butt plug, and Sean did not hide his light under a bushel. And despite having an impressive resume prior to becoming Press Secretary, he felt the need to establish himself as a moron on his first day on the job. I never got the sense, however, that he believed his own bullshit. But his poor judgment only blossomed over time, as he decided to be a contestant (no kidding) on Dancing with the Stars. Tragically, this photo is not AI.

SHOCKER: He didn’t win.

SARAH “HUCKSTERBEE” SANDERS

She is the one on the right. Unlike some of the others, she has absolutely nothing in her biography indicating anything exemplary. She did manage to graduate from Ouachita Baptist University. From their website: “Ouachita Baptist University’s Statement of Faith reflects sincerely held beliefs grounded in the solid foundation of Holy Scripture, which is fully inspired by God, and thus true and authoritative.”
Sarah (bless her little heart) is too stupid to know if she’s spouting bullshit or not.

KELLYANNE CONWAY…MASTER OF GISH-GALLOP

At age 16, she won the New Jersey Blueberry Princess pageant. At age 20, she won the World Champion Blueberry Packing competition. Augmenting these early successes, as press secretary for The Orange Umpaloompa, she established a new concept that is certainly in the top 10 greatest American political statements ever. By the way, she said this before she was Press Secretary, in defense of Sean Spicer's “fabulist” tale.

She also (Blueberry Queen status aside) has an extremely impressive resume. But in addition to coining one of the great American political dumb-ass-isms, she is undisputed master of the Gish gallop (unlike a horse gallop, this is pronounced with the accent on the last syllable…gal-LOP, and the “a” is not like Apple, it’s like the “u” in “duh”. So it would actually be like “guh-LOP”.)

The Gish gallop is a rhetorical technique in which a person in a debate attempts to overwhelm an opponent by presenting an excessive number of arguments, with no regard for their accuracy or strength, with a rapidity that makes it impossible for the opponent to address them in the time available. Gish galloping prioritizes the quantity of the galloper's arguments at the expense of their quality.

The term "Gish gallop" was coined in 1994 by the anthropologist Eugenie Scott, who named it after the American creationist Duane Gish, dubbed the technique's "most avid practitioner".

Here's a video of an elephant flinging poo. I sense it’s somehow related

Also…There is Brandolini's law, also known as the bullshit asymmetry principle, an internet adage coined in 2013 by Alberto Brandolini, an Italian programmer, that emphasizes the effort of debunking misinformation, in comparison to the relative ease of creating it in the first place. The law states:

The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it.

With this being said, I always had the sneaking suspicion that she knew she was bullshitting, but I'm not entirely sure. Watch the “alternative facts” video once more, and noticed the head dip and the closed eyes before she uttered the now infamous phrase. In poker, this is called a “tell”.

And this leads us to the Twinkie du jour,

KAROLINE LEAVITT (or leave it)

She is actually the first robot Press Secretary in history, preprogrammed with over 250 lifelike expressions and phrases. So “believing it or not” does not come into play. It is, in a way, refreshing, as any ambiguity is removed. The only thing she is lacking is that Mar-a-lago “look”, with the puffy lips, clown-like makeup, and push-up bra.

So that ends our tour of President Treasonweasel’s Press Secretaries.

But there is one more thing, and I have no place else to put it, so here it is. In parts of the country where the churches have Trump rather than Jesus on the crucifix, there are pig shows, and a feature (I'm not making this up) of pig showing is staring at the judges with the “I am here to kill your family” look. Apparently it's a thing, to hunch over and give judges the death stare. So just in case you have any concern that you do weird shit, you can let that concern go.

An Orange Caligula Press Secretary Haiku

Cascades of bullshit
Like Athena born from Zeus
Springing from my head

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