The following article by Kenneth T. Walsh was posted on the U.S News and World Report website October 20, 2017:
President Donald Trump distorts the record to present himself as the best.
There was a time when presidents wanted to surround themselves with people who were as smart as or smarter than they were, including iconic leaders such as George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. They thought it was best for the country to recruit the best and the brightest, and they had the humility to acknowledge that they didn’t have all the answers.
No more. President Donald Trump has made clear that he believes – and wants everyone else to accept – that he is always the smartest person in the room. This Trumpian hubris became evident, once again, at his Rose Garden news conference this week. It was, as usual, all about him as he trumpeted how well he is doing as president, how brilliantly he gets along with fellow Republicans in Congress, how his programs for tax reform and health care overhaul are masterstrokes. The problem was that his hyperbole sometimes went over the line into distortion and outright falsehood. Continue reading “The Smartest Person in the Room”