Loose Bannon

Steve Bannon (AP photo via WSJ)

Your humble blogger follows political news less than he does sports, business, and entertainment. Political junkies, please make allowances for the fact that I'm not intimately familiar with the twists and turns regarding ex-Presidential advisor Steve Bannon.

Steve Bannon was on top of the world after the 2016 election. His relationship with the President soured in a matter of months. After he was fired by the President, and, after his candidate, Roy Moore, failed to win the Alabama special Senate election, Steve Bannon has been viciously attacking President Trump, his family, and the Administration.

The situation calls to mind Lyndon Johnson's embrace of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover:

"It's probably better to have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in.”

Donald Trump knew that his advisor, pride wounded, was probably going to react this way to the firing yet did it anyway despite the consequences. True to form, Steve Bannon has been raining criticism from outside the tent.

Keeping a guy like that around would have escalated the damage, and give the President credit for knowing when to cut his losses.