The foolishness and the president's fury!

MONDAY, APRIL 20, 2020

Two obvious questions remain: Yesterday was a day of foolishness, and perhaps a day of poorly framed questions. More on that second point tomorrow, or at least so we expect.

It was also a day of presidential fury. Journalists were interrupted, attacked and insulted. Also, consider one striking question and answer. The question came out of the blue:

REPORTER (4/19/20): Mr. President, have you thought any more about pardoning Paul Manafort or Roger Stone so they’re not exposed to coronavirus in jail?

That question came pretty much out of the blue. Other questions, achieved and attempted, were more significant yesterday, but none produced more fury or a more startling response:

TRUMP (continuing directly): Well, I’ll just tell you this: Roger Stone was treated very unfairly. Paul Manafort, the black book turned out to be a fraud. We learned that out during the various last number of weeks and months. They had a black book that came out of Ukraine. It turned out to be a fraud. It turned out to be a fraud. They convicted a man; it turned out to be a fraud.

General Flynn was a highly respected person, and it turned out to be a scam on him. The FBI said he didn’t lie. And Mueller’s people wanted him to go to jail. Okay?

So what am I going to do? You’ll find out what I’m going do. I’m not going to say what I’m going to do.

But I will tell you, the whole thing turned out to be a scam, and it turned out to be a disgrace to our country, and it was a takedown of a duly elected president. And these people suffered greatly.

General Flynn—I mean, what they did to him! And even the FBI said—and they had some—and nobody bigger fan of the FBI than me, at the level of the people that really matter. But the top of the FBI was scum.

And what they did to General Flynn—and you know it, and everybody knows it—was a disgrace. He was in the service for over 30 years. He ends up being a general and respected. Respected! And almost his first day in office, they come in with papers; they want to investigate him. Never happened before. And now the tables are turned. Investigate the investigators, I guess.

These were crooked people. These are bad people. These are very dangerous people. You know what they are though? They’re scum. They’re human scum.

All right. Do you want to have one in the back? Please.

Stone was only treated unfairly. But when it comes to Manafort and Flynn, the investigations and prosecutions were a scam, a fraud and a disgrace. The probes were conducted by crooked people—more specifically, by human scum.

The commander's fury, and his invective, were striking even for him. That said, a pair of fairly obvious questions remain to be explored.

According to the White House transcript, the reporter actually asked one of these questions midway through, though the commander talked over her so instantly that you couldn't hear what she said.

Those unanswered, obvious remaining question go like this:

If those convictions were fraudulent, why haven't Manafort and Flynn been pardoned? Also, if the investigations and prosecutions were scams conducted by human scum, who haven't the "crooked people" who behaved in this way been charged with crimes—indicted?

The original question was less significant than various other questions. That said, it opened a window into the president's fury.

It also left two obvious questions unanswered. That said, the history of these daily sessions is clear:

No one will ask the obvious questions during today's prime-time session. These events have produced a history of spotless minds; every day, the high-end reporters start the world anew.

For the record, one more question goes unasked and unanswered. Is something perhaps a little bit wrong inside this person's head?

Concerning the very next question: After discussing the human scum, Trump called on a friendly face "in the back" (see text above).

Specifically, he threw to Jenn Pellegrino of the crackpot news org OAN. The question she asked was surpassingly weird even for OAN:

PELLEGRINO (continuing directly): Yes, please. Thank you, Mr. President. The CDC has finally admitted to profound failures with testing kits from the beginning of the outbreak. Is this a function of lax oversight from the Obama-Biden administration?

That's actually what she said! It's hard to believe, but since the question came from Pellegrino, it was surely intended as a way to let the angry commander-in-chief pummel Obama/Biden.

Even Trump refused to follow that trail. But that's how dumb that question was in this, our somewhat less than rational best of all possible worlds.