Really? It's All A Joke? All the More Reason.

The height of Republican snarkiness may just be the desperation with which they're trying to spin 45's. To wit: He's kidding, of course. Don't you get it?

Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, among the leading 45 apologists, tried this out on George Stephanopoulos of ABC last Sunday. It was as if Jordan couldn't believe that Stephanopoulos, a veteran of the White House staff himself, was soooooo naive about 45's actual, deeper knowledge of well, practically everything. It's as if he was saying: He's hiding things. There's so much he knows that you don't. He's just giving the media a hard time because he likes to do that. That's why he says all that outrageous stuff about Ukraine and China: He just wants you to think that. He doesn't really. He's just having fun.

Just another putdown. Just another snark. You can't handle the truth.

Just another reason he has to go. He's the president, for the love of heaven. People still, amazingly, hang on his every word. He has to have an attitude of importance about everything he says and does. But the whole thing's a joke to him. He thinks it should be so to us as well. Just go along with the joke. Leave it up to me. We'll be fine.

You'll excuse me if I'm losing my sense of humor about this. I don't think it's funny that he doesn't know how to act among foreign leaders, doesn't know how to act in public, can't talk about anything else but himself in ridiculous, glowing terms, has no empathy toward anyone, and it reflects in his policies--about the rich, about immigrants, about military allies, about Social Security and Medicare, about health care in general.

So I don't think Republicans should be all that snarky. I caught a little of that attitude when I went door-to-door for Democrats during the 2016 election campaign. It came from those we thought were friends, but decided all of a sudden that it wasn't anybody's business who they were voting for. We're voting for him and we don't want to talk about it. We want to tell off the world. We'll do it our own disingenuous way: With the pretension of privacy.

Well, they did. And this is what they're getting: a clueless, obnoxious, naive (himself), arrogant, blowhard who truly believes, and has always believed, that the world revolves around him. Before, of course, it never did. But he bluffed his way into the one position where it really does now, and he can't handle any of it: the responsibility, the criticism, the need for leadership. He makes knee-jerk decisions to make himself look bold and decisive, and then withdraws them because he sees far too late that he's goofed. It's happened again and again.

A president's statements are policy. Let me say that again: They're policy. It isn't just talk. Again, he doesn't get that. I'm right and everyone else is wrong. That childish. That stupid.

It's starting to build now. It may get to a certain point and level off, but it's difficult to see how the numbers will revert more favorably from this point on. He's even more unhinged. His endless anger isn't leg-pulling, it's a temper tantrum. His sarcasm, his cynicism, his insults, his endless lies, his endless scores to settle, his rants don't make people feel better. They wear people out. They repel us.

It isn't going to happen because she has far too much propriety and style, but--wouldn't it be great if Nancy Pelosi announced that 45 is being impeached and then pivoted and added: Don't you get it? It's just a joke. Where's your sense of humor?

Wonder who would laugh then.

Be well. Be careful. I'll see you down the road.


Mister Mark