The Attack Of The Orange Man-Baby

So trump is throwing a tantrum again, this time over Jeff Sessions and the Russia investigation. "If I knew he was going to recuse himself, then I never would have appointed him in the first place," is what he is saying. Which raises a couple of interesting points.

1. There was no formal investigation into trump's ties with Russia when Sessions was appointed.
Yes, the FBI was investigating Russian interference in the election, but -- as James Comey testified in his Senate hearing -- the investigation had not yet extended to trump himself. In effect, then, trump is saying that if he had known that Sessions was going to recuse himself from an investigation that wasn't happening, but that very clearly would be happening, he would have picked someone else that would have been more inclined to subvert the investigation that wasn't happening yet, in favor of trump.

In other words, trump is saying that Sessions is not corrupt enough for him. Isn't that special?

2. trump knew Russia would come around to him eventually.
Whether this was because of trump's involvement with Moscow or a result of him simply assuming the worst and that the Democrats were going to use any opportunity to sharpen their axes (and let's give him the benefit of the doubt and say that's what it was), it does raise the question of what his ties to the Kremlin are, exactly, and why it is so important that he have friendly faces in the investigation. Some would take this as an evidence of his collusion with Russia and subsequent attempts to cover it up. This is a possibility, but let's wait until the evidence is in, shall we?

Oh, right. We have meetings between his son, his son-in-law, his campaign manager, a Russian lawyer, and others to discuss "adoptions" -- which is apparently code for "Putin wants you to win, so here's a bunch of illegally obtained documents you can use against your opponent."

3. It is in keeping with this administration's reputation for not being very open.
Between shutting off the cameras in the White House briefing room, the seemingly random, Tourette's-like outbursts on Twitter, and the insane jumble of messaging around ... well, everything ... one gets the impression that, running through the back of trump's mind, is a fundamental lack of understanding that he is not the CEO, he is not the emperor. He can't just issue orders and expect everyone -- Congress, the military, the courts -- to immediately hop to, especially given the often contradictory nature of his rantings.

Of course, this hasn't stopped him from trying, and is no doubt behind much of his evident frustration with how his presidency is going so far.

It all comes down to a very basic concept that trump is not getting, or refusing to get, or willfully ignoring: he is not a king. He has been used to simply telling people what to do and having them do it for so long that, when someone actually says "No, we can't do that" he gets all torqued up and starts sending out tweets ... after first disabling the on-deck circle between his brain and his output. It's pretty much "batter up!" with whatever insane, loony, completely dysfunctional thought that pops into that cantaloupe he calls a head.

Things are going to go a lot smoother once he is out of office. Worst-case scenario is he gets re-elected somehow and servers two full terms, which means we will then be faced with approximately 60 years worth of work to clean up his damage. Best case? He, and his entire team of bottom-dwellers, are unceremoniously booted out of Washington pronto and we get someone in the White House with a functioning cerebral cortex and no Twitter account.

However, given the partisanship exhibited by the likes of Mitch McConnell, and the general rancor surrounding the nation's capital, I'm not really optimistic for that second scenario. I'm thinking that he is going to drag this investigation out for as long as he can, and in 2020 will lose to someone -- anyone -- capable of forming complete sentences. And it's more than a little depressing that this is the standard to which we have descended.

I gotta lie down.

Please like and share my Facebook page at www.facebook.com/blowhardpundit, and consider making a donation to our advertising fund at www.gofundme.com/blowhardpundit.