Get me protocol
The Trump administration official in charge of diplomatic protocol plans to resign and isn’t going to Japan for this week’s Group of 20 meetings, where he would have played a sensitive behind-the-scenes role, according to people familiar with the matter.
Trump has a protocol boffin?? Who knew? He doesn’t seem to have been doing much of a job…
Sean Lawler, a State Department official whose title is chief of protocol, is departing amid a possible inspector general’s probe into accusations of intimidating staff and carrying a whip in the office, according to one of the people.
Ah. So Trump has a protocol boffin who carries a whip in the office. Makes sense.
The protocol chief assists the president on overseas trips, and when foreign leaders visit the White House, by making introductions and briefing the president on protocol. Lawler, a fixture in the Oval office during dignitaries’ visits, served as the president’s liaison to the diplomatic corps at the State Department.
Diplomatic fine points handled by the protocol chief include helping determine where to hold meetings and in what order participants should enter a room.
And which hand to hold the whip in.
Obviously heard that the British government has a Chief Whip but didn’t think to research the actual meaning.
lol
When I first read about the whip I thought “they can’t mean an actual whip, can they?” My mind tried to assume that some non-literal meaning was intended, exactly along the lines of the Chief Whip or a three-line whip.
But another part of my mind was screaming “NO, OF COURSE IT’S A FUCKING LITERAL WHIP, BECAUSE OF COURSE IT IS.”
I should listen to that part more often.
Just read this to a colleague: ‘hm, don’t recall learning about that on the leadership course….’
FWIW, each chamber of the US Congress has a Majority Whip and a Minority Whip, so the White House didn’t to travel a great distance to find an example to misconstrue.
I want to be in a meeting with the Majority Whip and the Minority Whip. I’m fairly sure I could mess with their heads in a fairly catastrophic way. “So…. you’re the….. minority….. whip? I….. see…”
I’ve been trying to compile a list of legitimate trades, here in the modern age, that justify the carrying of a whip at work.
It’s Lion Tamer. That’s it, that’s the entire list.
I’m reliably informed that in the mid 1930s, a whip was standard issue gear for Nazi-fighting archaeologists.
YNNB:
If only milkshakes had been invented back then.
Lion tamers and jockeys. Possibly jockeys for lion racing, but that’s a highly niche job, I suspect.