On Saturday morning, we learned that contrary to what we all thought, and contrary to what everyone who has set foot inside the White House over the past 12 months will tell you off the record, Donald Trump is “a stable genius.”
only $45 pic.twitter.com/sKK2YQrPXd
— Heisenberg Report (@heisenbergrpt) January 6, 2018
Who knew?
As we noted first thing this morning, it’s easy to fool people into thinking you’re not in fact a “stable genius” when you blast out unhinged tweets at all hours of the day that sound like they were written by a 10-year-old and when you say things on national television like “I have a really good brain.”
It also doesn’t help when you can’t exercise enough self-restraint to wait even 24 hours before you lambast your former chief strategist for allegedly calling your son a treasonous dolt.
And see the thing about Trump’s contention that Michael Wolff’s book is full of salacious lies with no basis in reality is that it if that were true, you’d think the President wouldn’t take out his frustration on the people quoted in the book. That is, if Wolff is a liar, well then why publicly deride Steve Bannon for comments attributed to him by said liar? After all, if Wolff is just making shit up, then it doesn’t make any sense to essentially blame the victims who Trump alleges are misquoted.
In short: clearly Trump believes Steve Bannon said what Wolff says Bannon said, because if Trump didn’t believe it then why the whole “Sloppy Steve” thing? Good question, right?
Trump hasn’t let up on Bannon since The Guardian first published the “treason” comments. Just last night, for instance, he called Bannon a whimpering “dog”:
Michael Wolff is a total loser who made up stories in order to sell this really boring and untruthful book. He used Sloppy Steve Bannon, who cried when he got fired and begged for his job. Now Sloppy Steve has been dumped like a dog by almost everyone. Too bad! https://t.co/mEeUhk5ZV9
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2018
Yes, “too bad.”
And do you know what else is “too bad”? Well, we’ll tell you.
It’s “too bad” that Trump didn’t take a minute to breathe before he decided to tear into Steve because according to a copy of a statement Bannon was planning on making obtained by CNN, Steve was planning on defending Trump. This was what Bannon planned on saying:
As I said during my interview with ’60 Minutes’ and many times since, there is no basis to the Russian investigation. It’s a political witch hunt orchestrated by the left. Don Jr., like his father, is a great American and a patriot. And we all know Don Jr. did not knowingly meet with Russian agents. Paul Manafort is an independent actor who clearly put his own interests ahead of the campaign and all involved. Michael Wolff took my remarks about Don Jr. out of context to sell his book. Sadly, this is yet another lefty hatchet job intended to disrespect our President and his supporters.
So that’s what Trump could have gotten from Bannon. But being the “stable genius” that he is, he decided to rechristen his former friend “Sloppy Steve” because you know, that’s what someone who is “like, very smart” would do.
Nothing further.
Is a “Stable Genius” not unlike a “Stable Pilot.”
You know – as in the the old joke about the girl who asked her new best squeeze what he did for a living. His response was that he was a pilot.
A few weeks later the girl was going riding and saw her guy – shovel in hand – shoveling manure out of the stalls of her favorite riding stable. Being a liberated woman and saturated in media awareness in the age of “male abuse,” she confronted her deceptive paramour – forthwith demanding the truth regarding his professional status.
Our literally slick male friend, parked his shovel in the vertical position favored by most hourly manual laborers. Leaning on it and with both hands casually resting on the top of the shovel handle, he calmly replied that he was a pilot, because “I pile it here and pile it over there.” The manure – from here to over there.
A lame and bad old joke, but appropriate – at least in my mind. Trump comes closer to this kind of “Stable Genius/Stable Pilot” – because Teflon Don knows how and where to move shit in his favor – faster and arguably better than almost any President that we have ever had – excepting Slick Willy (Bill Clinton). The “Genius” part like most of Trump’s claims – he has personally and repeatedly demonstrated as being “fake news.”
When this about face by Bannon goes viral, it will be seen as prima facie evidence that Trump is indeed the unstable blowhard that he is. Trump is doomed.