You Don’t Have To Write About Anthony Scaramucci Anymore

On Monday night, vertically incommensurable former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci held a launch party for his new fake media venture, the Scaramucci Post. That is the news that was reported by several outlets, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, BuzzFeed, Fortune, and The Hill, each of which also dutifully reported one additional key fact: that Scaramucci has “no idea” what the Scaramucci Post is.

Everyone who wrote about the party did so with what I’m sure they thought was an adequate level of skepticism. The New York Times, for example, had a withering lede:

Nine weeks ago, Anthony Scaramucci was still the communications director to the president, flying on Air Force One and steering the public relations strategy of the White House.

On Monday evening, he was a man with his arm in a sling, explaining how the moon landing led to the invention of Tang and Velcro (it didn’t) to reporters in the mirrored basement of a Midtown Manhattan steakhouse that he partially owns.

And The Hill noted:

As for what the actual company will look like or when it might have a website Scaramucci said, “actions always speak louder than words, so watch it unfold.”

Haha, how embarrassing for the little bad man! What a dummy!

Except, who is actually getting embarrassed here? Scaramucci clearly has no shame. That’s his whole schtick. The reporters, on the other hand, spent their Monday nights in the basement of a Midtown steakhouse at a launch party for a non-existent venture.

It must be said that the act of attending the Mooch Launch isn’t quite as pathetic as some of the behavior displayed on Twitter in the weeks prior, after the Scaramucci Post tweeted that journalists who wanted to attend should tweet at them with the hashtag #MoochIWantToParty. Many did.

Begging for an invitation to an event you want to cover isn’t, in itself, that bad. You have to be willing to accept a certain level of embarrassment to practice journalism. You have to be willing to ask stupid questions, often in public; pitch ridiculous ideas; call people on the phone, which is revolting; and ask people uncomfortable, even rude questions that they might not want to answer. You have to be willing to be kind of a dumb jerk a lot of the time.

But the shamelessness that led reporters to beg for an invite to the phony launch party for a silly clown’s wholly imaginary venture is a different kind of shamelessness. It’s knowing, but not caring, that what you’re covering isn’t news, doesn’t matter, and is designed only to enhance the profile of the subject through stories exactly like this. It is the shamelessness of knowing your role in this guy’s game and playing it anyway. For what? For Content? For 600 words? Do any of the people who wrote about the Scaramucci Post and its “launch” “party” think that what Mooch is doing actually matters? Even worse, do they think their scathing takedowns of the Mooch are going to finally shame him into fucking off forever?

No. That is not going to happen, and he is giving you all the clues you need. He literally said he “has absolutely no idea what he’s doing and he has absolutely no idea what Scaramucci Post is,” in the third person. He wrote those lines for them because he wants them to write this. You can’t be withering about someone with as little shame as that. He doesn’t need to convince you that the Scaramucci Post is going to ever be a thing; he just needs your attention, for any reason.

Scaramucci’s news value lies entirely in his status as an ex-Trump official. Perhaps editors think that alone justifies the breathless coverage. But Scaramucci is a different breed of ex-Trump administration idiot than most, like Priebus or even Bannon. They actually did things! He distinguished himself only by being such a colossal failure, by lasting five minutes in his job, by saying rude words to a reporter on the record, and by having a funny name.

Look, it makes perfect sense for Scaramucci to double down on being Just The Biggest Idiot Ever, the Juicero of Trump guys. That’s his brand. More than any other ex-Trump official, the Mooch is a meme; more than any other ex-Trump official, he is nothing more than that. He has no constituency, and represents no trend or current in modern American politics beyond the eternal prevalence of highly quotable incompetents. That puts immense power in the hands of the media: They can just say no to the Mooch, and he will wilt like a plant deprived of sunlight.

Scaramucci is Not News. He is a short man with a foul mouth and lot of money, who was White House Communications Director for the length of two juice cleanses and is not likely to ever work in real politics again. His only goal right now is to keep the media’s interest, to ride the wave of fame until it breaks, and, perhaps, to find some way to make a profit before it does. He’s a narcissist who used a racist president to try and increase his own profile and power, and failed, because he’s a moron. He is not relevant. He is the Chewbacca Mom of politics.

Please, I’m begging you: Unfollow the Scaramucci Post Twitter account, stop writing about him, stop even thinking about him. The only way to get rid of curs like him is to ignore them. It’s simple, really: just don’t look.