Return of The Illustrated Manafort

Given the shambolic nonsense that fell out of Sean Spicer's bottomless lie-hole today in response to a very simple question (from CNN) --  

Sean Spicer says Trump campaign chairman actually played 'limited role' in campaign

-- it seemed appropriate to repost this from August of 2016:

The Illustrated Manafort

With great respect for the life and work of Ray Bradbury.

Prologue:

It was a warm afternoon in early September when I first met the Illustrated Manafort.

Walking along an asphalt road, I was on the final long of a two weeks' walking tour of Wisconsin. Late in the afternoon I stopped, ate some pork, beans, and a doughnut, and was preparing to stretch out and read when the Illustrated Manafort walked over the hill and stood for a moment against the sky.

I didn't know he was Illustrated then. I only know that he was tall, once well muscled, but now, for some reason, going to fat. I recall that his arms were long, and the hands thick, but that his face was like a child's, set upon a massive body.

He seemed only to sense my presence, for he didn't look directly at me when he spoke his first words.

"Do you know where I can find a job?"

"I'm afraid not," I said.

"I hadn't had a job that's lasted in forty years," he said.

Though it was a hot late afternoon, he wore his wool shirt buttoned tight about his neck. His sleeves were rolled and buttoned down over his thick wrists. Perspiration was streaming from his face, yet he made no move to open his shirt.

"Well," he said at last, "this is as good a place as any to spend the night. Do you mind

company?"

"I have some extra food you'd be welcome to," I said.

He sat down heavily, grunting. 'You'll be sorry you asked me to stay," he said. "Everyone always is. That's why I'm walking. Here it is, early. September, the cream of the Labor Day carnival season. I should be making money hand over fist at any small town side show celebration, but here I am with no prospects."

He took off an immense shoe and peered at it closely. "I usually keep a job about ten days. Then something happens and they fire me. By now every carnival in America won't touch me with a ten-foot pole."

"What seems to be the trouble?" I asked...

Chapter One:  The Other Foot  (from The New York Times, March 28, 2016)

Donald Trump Hires Paul Manafort to Lead Delegate Effort 

Donald J. Trump, girding for a long battle over presidential delegates and a potential floor fight at the Cleveland convention, has enlisted the veteran Republican strategist Paul J. Manafort to lead his delegate-corralling efforts, according to people briefed on Mr. Trump’s plans. 

Mr. Trump confirmed the hire in a brief telephone interview. “Yes,” he said, “it is true.”

Mr. Manafort, 66, is among the few political hands in either party with direct experience managing nomination fights: As a young Republican operative, he helped manage the 1976 convention floor for Gerald Ford in his showdown with Ronald Reagan, the last time Republicans entered a convention with no candidate having clinched the nomination.

He performed a similar function for Mr. Reagan in 1980, and played leading roles in the 1988 and 1996 conventions, for George Bush and Bob Dole.

Mr. Manafort has drawn attention in recent years chiefly for his work as an international political consultant, most notably as a senior adviser to former President Viktor F. Yanukovych of Ukraine, who was driven from power in 2014...

Chapter Two:  The Exiles (from Bloomberg Politics, May 19, 2016)

Trump Promotes Manafort to Campaign Chairman

The veteran campaign strategist will now be in charge of nearly every facet of the campaign.

Power over the management of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign is shifting to Paul Manafort.

Manafort was hired for his experience with contested Republican conventions, but now that that threat has passed, Trump is naming the 67-year-old strategist as the campaign chairman, aides told Bloomberg Politics.

Corey Lewandowski, 42, will continue to be campaign manager, Hope Hicks, the campaign's spokesperson, said. But Manafort, whose title also currently includes chief strategist, is now in charge of every facet of the campaign...

Chapter Three:  The Long Rain  (from USA Today, June 20, 2016)

Trump fires Corey Lewandowski as campaign manager

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump fired Corey Lewandowski as campaign manager on Monday, seeking to re-calibrate his organization after a stream of criticism about the divisive political operative who directed his presidential bid since its launch a year ago.

After a number of advisers — including his children — had raised questions with Trump about Lewandowski's aggressive style, the campaign issued a short statement early Monday saying only that he "will no longer be working with the campaign."

...

"Firing your campaign manager in June is never a good sign," said Republican political consultant Kevin Madden after the announcement.

The former campaign manager clashed with many colleagues, according to two people briefed on the dismissal who were not authorized to speak publicly, including senior adviser Paul Manafort and the candidate's children, who supported the leadership change...

Chapter Four:  Marionettes, Inc.  (from the Washington Post, August 18, 2016)

These Trump surrogates are working as hard as they can to deny a campaign shake-up 

...

Trump's decline in polls in the wake of the two political conventions held last month began to cause panic among Republicans, and Trump himself reportedly began to tell friends privately that he blamed micromanagement by advisers and a change in strategy away from his shoot-from-the-hip style toward scripted, "teleprompter Trump" for his recent numbers.

It's not a huge stretch, then, to say that this week's shake-up of top Trump advisers was an attempt at a reset, at a minimum. But the campaign tried its hardest to smother that narrative, sending its small army of television surrogates to attempt to change the narrative. In the video above, several of Trump's top surrogates can be seen trying to deflect the argument that the campaign shake-up wasn't a … campaign shake-up.

Chapter Five: The Illustrated Manafort (from The New York Times, August 19, 2016):

Paul Manafort Quits Donald Trump’s Campaign After Tumultuous Run

Paul Manafort, installed to run Donald J. Trump’s campaign after the firing of his original campaign manager, handed in his resignation on Friday morning.

Mr. Manafort left nearly a week after a New York Times report about tumult within the Republican presidential nominee’s campaign helped precipitate a leadership shake-up. His departure reflects repeated efforts to steady a campaign that has been frequently roiled by the behavior of its tempestuous first-time candidate.

Mr. Manafort was also dogged by reports about secretive efforts he made to help the former pro-Russian government in Ukraine, where he has worked on and off over several years. He had also become viewed with trepidation by Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law and a major force within the campaign, amid a number of false starts since the Republican National Convention, according to three people briefed on the matter...

Epilogue:

It was  almost midnight. The moon was high in the sky now. The Illustrated Manafort lay motionless. I had seen what there was to see. The stories were told; they were over and done.

There remained only that empty space upon the Illustrated Manafort’s back, that area of jumbled colors and shapes.

Now, as I watched, the vague patch began to assemble itself, in slow dissolvings from one shape to another and still another. And at last a face formed itself there, a face that gazed out at me from the colored flesh, a face with a familiar nose and mouth, familiar eyes.

It was very hazy. I saw only enough of the Illustration to make me leap up. I stood therein the moonlight, afraid that the wind or the stars might move and wake the monstrous gallery at my feet. But he slept on, quietly.

The picture on his back showed the Illustrated Manafort himself, with his fingers about my neck, choking me to death. I didn’t wait for it to become clear and sharp and a definite picture.

I ran down the road in the moonlight. I didn’t look back. A small town lay ahead, dark and asleep. I knew that, long before morning, I would reach the town...

Run all you want, Donald.

Run all day and all night.

You'll never make it.

There is nothing waiting for you at the end of the line but the brutal judgement of history which will mark you down forever in as the biggest liar, fraud, buffoon and loser ever nominated for President by a major American political party.