Great but slightly imperfect
Like Moby Dick, Trump is still out there, bristling with harpoons but ready to ram and sink our fragile republic. Trying not to think about him is like trying not to think about death or diarrhea. Sooner or later it's unavoidable.
Last week he hit CAP LOCK and produced the closest thing to Augustine's Confessions we can ever expect. Read closely and you may find something approaching an admission of guilt.
"A PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES MUST HAVE FULL IMMUNITY, WITHOUT WHICH IT WOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE FOR HIM/HER TO PROPERLY FUNCTION. ANY MISTAKE, EVEN IF WELL INTENDED, WOULD BE MET WITH ALMOST CERTAIN INDICTMENT BY THE OPPOSING PARTY AT TERM END. EVEN EVENTS THAT 'CROSS THE LINE' MUST FALL UNDER TOTAL IMMUNITY, OR IT WILL BE YEARS OF TRAUMA TRYING TO DETERMINE GOOD FROM BAD. THERE MUST BE CERTAINTY."
Forty-four presidents, some of them shockingly bad, never worried about "almost certain indictment" upon leaving office. The radical Republicans who controlled Congress in 1868 didn't come after Andrew Johnson, and Barack Obama ignored those who urged him to at least investigate George W. Bush's catastrophic war-making in Afghanistan and Iraq. That's not how we operate, unless you leave office abruptly under a cloud so thick that you need to negotiate a pardon from Gerald Ford. Those ninety-one criminal indictments are preying on his mind. He seems to think they have to do with policy or the execution of the laws, rather than insurrection and election interference. Choices, not "mistakes."
"Year of trauma trying to determine good from bad" -- that sounds like a moral issue. Of course, if you wriggle into office (courtesy of the electoral college) with no conception of good and bad because you are obviously and utterly without conscience, maybe Chief Executive of a republic is the wrong job for you.
He goes on to compare himself to police who "cross the line" (i.e., murder people) who must also be given blanket immunity because they do important work except for "THE OCCASIONAL 'ROGUE COP' OR 'BAD APPLE,'" Here it comes: "SOMETIMES YOU JUST HAVE TO LIVE WITH 'GREAT BUT SLIGHTLY IMPERFECT.'" Derek Chauvin was great up to the moment he killed George Floyd, and Trump was great until he dispatched a mob to hang Mike Pence. Even great men can have a slightly imperfect day. We good?
This dark night of the soul followed a day of re-re-defaming a woman he raped long ago and now claims not to remember, so it's not exactly the Garden of Gethsemane. It is, however, a rare glimpse into the disintegrating brain of a cornered animal. A few days later he was in New Hampshire running scared: "They never report the crowd on January 6, you know, Nikki Haley. Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley...you know they destroyed all the information...like Nikki Haley is in charge of security, we offered her ten thousand people, soldiers, National Guards...whatever they want, they turned it down." No matter how many times he repeated "Nikki Haley" he couldn't shake out the name "Nancy Pelosi."
The MAGAts in the front row must have looked confused, because he changed gears: "We're gonna place strong protections to stop banks and regulators from trying to debank you and we're going to debank...they want to take away your rights, they want to take away your country, the things they're doing, all electric cars..."
That clarified matters. Why is Biden de-banking us? Him and his electric cars!
It was time to drag out the cognitive test from years ago, in which he dazzled the examiners by identifying several animals. "I think it was 35, 30 questions. They always show you the first one, like a giraffe, a tiger, or this or that -- a whale. 'Which one is the whale?' OK. And that goes on for three or four and then it gets harder and harder and harder." (There is no whale, says the neurologist who devised the test. Not even a white one.) No dementia, no dementia, you're the dementia.
Trump may spend another sleepless night hating Haley in all-caps: Ron DeSantis has decided to stop wasting money and annoying people and has shut down his campaign. I wouldn't want to be a teacher, librarian or health care provider in Florida this week.
And then there's Ryan Binkley. The self-described pastor and businessman has spent $8 million of his own money running for president so far. He got 774 votes in Iowa and hopes to do even better in New Hampshire. Why? "God spoke to me many years ago about this." A poll this week showed him just four points behind DeSantis. Who just quit.
On Friday Merrick Garland told CNN, "The special prosecutor [Jack Smith] has said from the beginning that he thinks public interest requires a speedy trial, which I agree with." Now he's in a hurry?
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