Wilbur Ross at work

This afternoon The New York Times reports that Wilbur Ross, Secretary of Commerce,

threatened to fire top employees at NOAA [the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] on Friday after the agency’s Birmingham office contradicted President Trump’s claim that Hurricane Dorian might hit Alabama.

That threat led to an unusual, unsigned statement later that Friday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration disavowing the office’s own position that Alabama was not at risk.

The Dorian–Alabama story captures so much of what’s wrong with this administration: contempt for truth, contempt for science, contempt for expertise, sycophancy at every level, the use of broad-point Sharpies as writing instruments, and a belief that the autocratic leader must always be proved right. The weather itself must bend to the will of Donald Trump.

Excuse me while I pause to clap fiercely for the leader. You clap too.