Scott Pruitt has been cruelly misunderstood. Now that he has quit as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, it’s time to set the record straight. You see, he wasn’t just protecting the environment. He was protecting our president’s soul.
“My desire in service to you has always been to bless you as you make important decisions for the American people,” Pruitt wrote to Trump as he shuffled off this mortal coil of government. “I believe you are serving as President today because of God’s providence. I believe that same providence brought me into your service.”
You can believe in the science of climate change if you like. Scott Pruitt believes he is a saint, which you can clearly see from his many martyrdoms.
For starters, he wasn’t asking his security detail to drive around looking for Ritz-Carlton moisturizing lotion for the sake of his complexion. People outside the EPA have no idea just how much rising temperatures can dry out a cabinet official’s skin. Think of it more like a federal exploration of how climate change affects the epidermis of the executive branch.
Speaking of hotels, what kind of malice does it take to suggest that his desperate need for a used mattress from a Trump hotel was some kind of prima donna exercise in sucking up to his boss? You don’t need to have a Harvard medical degree to know that a good night’s sleep might be all that separates us from a newly negotiated Paris climate deal.
Yes, of course people have gossiped endlessly about our tireless protector of the environment seeking out a meeting with the CEO of Chick-fil-A to scope out a job for his wife. But honestly, their chicken is rather delicious, even if their politics are not. Besides, how are you going to sell environmental protection to Trump Country without a huge supply of fried food?
Some people have sounded shocked that Pruitt would want cut-price accommodation from a Washington lobbyist, or get his young staffers to pay his hotel bills without reimbursing them.
But in a cabinet stacked full of super-wealthy Mnuchins and Cohns and Rosses – never mind the less-wealthy Trumps – Pruitt was just a poor boy making good. All those camels couldn’t pass through the eye of a needle like a man who spends lobbyist and staffer money.
Saint Scott is an epochal figure, it’s true.
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