Sometimes being in the business that necessarily includes chronicling the reality TV from hell is too much. Enough of the insulting, alarming, disingenuous and stupid stuff that comes out of the Oval Orifice. Sometimes you just want to move on to a Water Street Tampa addition, a reflection on passed initiatives involving schools and transit or maybe a Bucs soap-opera update.
In short, Trump’s week began with that media-demeaning, insult-filled news conference performance. Losing NFL locker-room interviews have had more class–and been more informative. Then he doubled down by banning CNN’s Jim Acosta from the White House. I would love to have seen how Sam Donaldson would have handled the Apprentice trash talk. Then came the formal firing of AG Jeff Sessions and the appointment of special-counsel attack dog and Justice Department mole Matthew Whitaker as acting AG. Then footage of the president saying, “I can tell you Matt Whitaker’s a great guy. I mean, I know Matt Whitaker.” This was followed by more recent footage of the president saying, “I don’t know Matt Whitaker.” Whatever; it’s pathological. Then Trump accused election officials in Florida (and Arizona) of rigging the vote against his surrogates before he tweeted that the tragedy and devastation of the California fires were a function of poor state preparation. Then he and Lady MAGA flew off to France for the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, after underscoring his identity as an uber American “nationalist.” After arriving, he canceled a visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery and was the only one among 72 heads of state and government to skip out on the inaugural Paris Peace Summit. No one mistook him for Woodrow Wilson. Quelle dommage!