Liberal Analysis… :D:D
[SIZE=6]Why Tom Brady’s ‘gentle’ roast of Trump at Biden’s White House was actually ‘deeply vicious’[/SIZE]
President Biden hosted the Super Bowl champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers at the White House on Tuesday, both Biden and star quarterback Tom Brady “wearing sunglasses and grins,” Annie Linskey writes at [I]The Washington Post[/I]. “It was in many ways the most traditional of presidential rituals — the visit of a championship team to the White House, allowing athletic stars and political leaders to bask in each other’s all-American glow” — and in this case “the very point was to be normal, traditional, even dull.”
At the same time, “it was a scene straight out of a Donald Trump nightmare, and quite possibly the worst day of Donald Trump’s life,” Jonathan Chait writes at [I]New York[/I]. "To grasp why such an anodyne scene would produce such a wounding effect on a man who has endured misfortunes such as bankruptcy, losing a presidential election, two impeachments, and innumerable legal setbacks, one needs to understand his peculiar psychology. Here, in rough order, is Trump’s hierarchy of needs: 1. To be treated as a winner; 2. To pal around with celebrities; 3. To not be laughed at; 4. To gain the specific approval of Tom Brady."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eIngHgtI6U:3
In Trump’s mind, he and Brady are both “Winners,” Chait explains. But now, after “avoiding Trump’s White House on a flimsy pretext” following his 2017 Super Bowl victory, Brady “went to Biden’s” and “used his appearance to mock the candidate he defeated.” Brady made two jokes at Trump’s expense, one about Trump’s refusal to accept his defeat and the second about being called “Sleepy Tom” after forgetting what down it was during a game.
While the “Sleepy Tom” joke “sounds more gentle than the first joke, it is in fact much more deeply vicious,” Chait argues. “In Trump’s mind, Biden is a pathetic loser, and he is the winner. Like Tom Brady. Yet here was Brady, inverting the whole hierarchy. Biden is the winner, like Brady, and Winners now are guys who get called sleepy by the Losers for making a small mistake on the way to their triumph.” :D:D:D
[I]Being mocked by Tom Brady wasn’t the only reason Trump might have preferred to avoid the news on Tuesday. His longtime friend and adviser, Thomas Barrack, was arrested for allegedly being an unregistered foreign agent, and Jeff Bezos, the much-wealthier nemesis he frequently attacked, flew to space and, upon exiting his rocket, declared it his “best day ever.”
In Trump’s mind, the two men were parallels to each other: both Winners, and natural companions on the basis of their mastery of their respective fields. “He’s a friend of mine, he’s a great guy, and he’s a great athlete obviously, but he’s a winner,” Trump told TMZ in 2016. “I think Tom is totally innocent. I think Tom is — first of all, I know him, he’s such an honorable guy, and I’m with him all the way.” Trump has repeatedly expressed his regret that he “could have had Tom Brady” as his son-in-law, rather than the nerdy Jared Kushner.
The relationship always had an asymmetric quality. Brady repeatedly expressed discomfort at Trump’s public adulation, and has declined to talk about who he voted for. In 2017, he skipped a White House invitation to celebrate a previous Super Bowl win, citing his need to attend to his ailing mother. The snub, according to the Washington [I]Post[/I], sent Trump into a rage:
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[INDENT]Trump grew angry in April 2017 when Tom Brady said he planned to skip the White House visit with the Patriots, huddling angrily with aides and even calling Patriots owner Robert Kraft. One former senior administration official described a chaotic scene unfolding over the heartlands of America, as Trump flew back from an event in Wisconsin. Trump made a number of calls and asked aides to help fix the situation, worried that Brady’s absence would reflect poorly on him.[/INDENT]
Last year, Brady described his “friendship” with Trump that makes it sound more like an unrequited man crush:
[INDENT][I]“He would call me after games, ‘I watched your game Tom, let’s play golf together.’ So, 2003, 2004, that’s kind of the way it was,” Brady said. “He would golf, and then he became someone that — he would come up to our games and stand on the sideline. He would cheer for the Patriots. He always had a way of connecting with people, and still does.
“But the whole political aspect came, and I think I got brought into a lot of those things because it was so polarizing around the election time. It was uncomfortable for me. You can’t undo things — not that I would undo a friendship — but the political support is totally different than the support of a friend.”[/I][/INDENT]
And now, having avoiding Trump’s White House on a flimsy pretext, Brady went to Biden’s. Not only that, he used his appearance to mock the candidate he defeated.