Look at this lame attempt to justify the White House expenses for this trip to Africa by Chief of Staff Denis McDounough.

Here are his chief arguments:

The “We’ve spent fantastic amounts of money on trips before so we should keep doing it,” excuse:

“The Washington Post also said that price tag was fully consistent with the cost we’ve paid for similar trips in the past,” McDonough said, before pointing out that Africa was a center of investment and economic growth.

And the “I’ll answer a question he never asked and is wholly beside the point and sound indignant so he won’t follow up,” excuse:

“Is it right that we should just let the sequester sit in place?” McDonough continued. “Absolutely not. That’s why we have aggressively been reaching out to Republicans and Democrats to underscore the though choices that this president is willing to take to underscore long term investments to return growth and opportunity to middle America.”

Oh, and if this passes for a “grilling” as Mediaite put it, then the word has no meaning anymore.