Scaramucci’s exit provides a bit of normalcy

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Anthony Scaramucci: The man, the myth, The Mooch.

A mere 10 days had passed since President Donald Trump announced Scaramucci’s appointment as the White House communications director, and six days since his actual start date, but suddenly he was gone last Monday in a cloud of dust, obscenities and broken dreams. Just when it appeared the smooth-talking, multimillionaire Wall Street financier had finally found his 15 minutes of fame, the mantle was stripped with 14 minutes left on the clock. Precisely zero people felt sorry for Scaramucci when he crashed and burned — yet those 10 short days felt like 10 years to the rest of us.

Many things can be said about Scaramucci, and lots of them have already been said. He’s an unbelievably easy target – a man as sweet as salt by all outward appearances, and clearly much more unlikeable when the cameras aren’t rolling. If he weren’t his own cartoon character with a power tie and a self-appointed nickname – “The Mooch” – he would be the Road Runner, blowing through one milepost after another during his week for the ages. Hired: Check. Force out the Chief of Staff: Check. Miss a childbirth while hanging with the commander-in-chief: Check. Unleash a profane tirade on an unassuming reporter: Check. Divorce announcement: Check. Fired: Check.

It's easy to see what happened here – there is ample precedent. Fresh off a massive payday after selling his business, and intoxicated by the power of the Oval Office, Scaramucci couldn’t believe his good fortune when he landed his new, highly visible gig as communications director. His first news conference went reasonably well, Trump was happy, and as a bonus, it appeared he would be able to land a fatal blow to his embattled arch nemesis, Reince Priebus.

Scaramucci went to a high-powered dinner with President Trump and some of his sycophants from Fox News one night, and once dinner was over, he returned to his office to bask in the glory of it all. At that very moment, his ego could have arm-wrestled Trump’s ego left-handed and driven a golf ball 400 yards straight down the center of the fairway with the other hand – blindfolded. Unable to control himself any longer, Scaramucci picked up the phone and called a reporter to sound off. The rest is history.

This is a terrible result for Scaramucci, but for the rest of us, the news of his firing is nothing if not encouraging. Finally, after all of these countless head-scratching moments when we tilted our heads back and roared, “When will this madness end?” at no one in particular, a White House personnel move went precisely the way it was supposed to. Finally, when we asked ourselves, “Isn’t someone, somewhere going to do something about this ridiculous behavior in the White House?” the answer was yes – someone will be held accountable. Finally, there was remedial action instead of pure, unbridled chaos. Finally.

We know who deserves the credit – Chief of Staff John F. Kelly, who made terminating Scaramucci a top priority on his first day. Whether or not the Scaramucci ouster was an anomaly is yet to be determined, of course, but there is reason for optimism that the winds may shift inside the White House. Perhaps a stiff breeze will knock out the president’s Twitter account.

This story was originally published August 7, 2017 at 4:56 AM with the headline "Scaramucci’s exit provides a bit of normalcy."