Excerpts from The Saga of the Talking Presidential Sphincter

Was this the tipping point finally?   I could easily see Trump pull a Sarah Palin on the whole country and pass the baton to Mike Pence.  Bad as Pence would be, I have to prefer that to this monstrosity and embarrassment.

I've heard a lot of criticism of Michael Wolff, and it may be warranted, but I really enjoyed the article in New York Magazine about the Trumps on Election Night (an excerpt from the book).  Wolff makes a great analogy using Mel Brooks' movie "The Producers"--the campaign that was intended to lose dramatically failed to achieve its objective.  And won instead.

My wife:  "Stephen Miller is a putin'bot."

Nicholas Kristof  said in a Times editorial last weekend argued that 2017 was the best year in History.  He's right in a statistical and globalist sense, but it's a very misleading lede.  Short term great, but by any other measure of time, a disaster.
 He gets to the point about two-thirds of the way through, which is that the potential human value present in this moment provides urgency to do something about the threats to it.
He's right, but our focus should be on addressing the "mortal threats" he mentions briefly.

Josh Marshall had it right:  It just doesn't matter whether Trump is mentally ill--if there were any doubt.
Here's a quote I liked from a Washington Post update this morning:

He's one of multiple Trump picks who couldn't pass muster with a GOP-controlled Senate, yet continues to wield immense authority within the government. 

--James Hohmann, "The Daily 202", Washington Post, Jan. 18, 2018, talking about Sam Clovis, who was humiliatingly recalled from a nomination for the US Dept. of Agriculture.   I like the phrase "multiple Trump picks" and variations of it:  "multiple Trump pricks", "multiple pump tricks"

An interesting question from the respected Quinnipiac polling agency asked respondents to give him a grade from A to F, a much better one than whether someone approves of him or feels we're on the right track:  much more information value.  This poll, before the "shithole" comment had 39% grade him an 'F', then 17% a D, only 11% a C, 16% a B, and 16% an A.  (Clearly the 'I don't know/No answer' portion is omitted from their quote.)  My calculation of their average is a 74, right in the middle of the 'D' range.

If we consider our expectations about a Trump presidency after Election Night, I would agree with this rating:  he hasn't gotten us into a new stupid war--yet.

I remember feeling somewhat similarly about Dubya in mid-2001 (actually writing it--probably in eRaider.com)  The difference is that those who would've given Dubya an F would probably only grade him in the 60-75 range, while Trump is probably distributed uniformly over the 0-75 range.  Actually, that's very generous to him, as is the 60 average I gave him in coming up with the 74 average:  I would personally give him an overall rating (not compared to my expectations) to be about a 17.+

"Archie Bunker with a twitter feed"  - Josh  on Don Lemon, CNN +Obama would probably be about a 93--topic for another day, based on a measure that is not subjected to my interest but to humanity's, and to the notion of a free, somewhat democratic America's as a key factor in our species' continued viability.) The randomness of Trump's behavior is wholly negative from the point of view of the world, but not entirely so from the American one (first, if only narrowly or currently so).