BREAKING: From Donald J. Trump to Roseanne Barr!

SATURDAY, APRIL 14, 2018

Alleged kink in Moscow, plus crazy beliefs: If you're a fan of the human race, you should probably hope that the report about the "pee tape" is false.

Just think what it means about Donald J. Trump if the report is true! In this morning's Washington Post, Ashley Parker lays out the entertaining basics—or at least, she almost does:

PARKER (4/14/18): The tawdriest detail in former FBI director James B. Comey’s new memoir offers the perfect mix of sex, spies and kink—call it “Fifty Shades of le Carré” for the Trump era.

Comey describes President Trump’s obsession with uncorroborated intelligence suggesting that Russia had compromising material on him—specifically including footage of him watching prostitutes urinate on each other in a Moscow hotel room in 2013, while Trump was in town for the Miss Universe pageant.

It's just so tawdry—so "perfectly" kinky and cool!

That's how Parker starts today's news report. Daintily, she omits part of the story, as described in the Steele dossier:

STEELE DOSSIER: According to Source D, where s/he had been present, TRUMP’s (perverted) conduct in Moscow included hiring the presidential suite of the Ritz Carlton Hotel, where he knew President and Mrs OBAMA (whom he hated) had stayed on one of their official trips to Russia, and defiling the bed where they had slept by employing a number of prostitutes to perform a ’golden showers (urination) show in front of him. The hotel was known to be under FSB control with microphones and concealed cameras in all the main rooms to record anything they wanted to.

According to the Steele dossier, Trump organized the "golden shower" cultural activity as a way of defiling a bed where the Obamas had slept. Parker had some fun with the word "golden" near the end of today's report, but she (or her editors) chose to omit this part of the dossier's story.

According to Isikoff and Corn, Steele himself has told colleagues that "it's fifty-fifty" as to whether this story is true. It seems to us we should all pray that it isn't.

This is why we say that:

How crazy would Donald J. Trump have to be if the full story is true? How crazy would he have to be to organize this cultural event as a way of lashing out at (the hated) Obama?

Answer: He'd have to be extremely crazy. If this story is actually true, it seems to us that it mandates a change in our basic assessment of Trump:

It moves him from maybe being "mentally ill" to being stark raving mad.

As you may have heard by now, Donald J. Trump holds the nuclear codes. For that reason, it seems to us that we all should pray that this "perfect mix of spies and kink" is in fact totally bogus.

Is Donald J. Trump stark raving mad? If this perfectly kinky story is true, yes, it would seem that he is. This returns us to our story line concerning Roseanne Barr, who we liked, very much, when we spent a few days around her long ago and far away, in the year 1986.

Roseanne's eponymous TV show returned to the air last month. It triggered essays by several liberal observers—essays we'd be inclined to regard as signs of the (liberal) times.

Roxane Gay was afraid, very afraid in the New York Times. Soon after, C. Nicole Mason wrote an essay in the Outlook section of the Washington Post in which she made a set of peculiar claims about what the new show hath wrought.

Mason identifies as black. She liked the original "Roseanne" series, but she didn't like the first few episodes of the reboot.

Apparently on this basis, Mason made a set of shaky claims about the new series' relationship to race. At one point, for example, she offered this assessment, which is a bit hard to parse:

MASON (4/8/18): In truth, I can’t figure out if the reboot is an indictment of working-class whites, who overwhelmingly voted for Trump and are getting very little in return, or if it is a nod to a growing narrative that attempts to define whites as the true working class in America at the expense of blacks and Latinos.

Might the new series involve an "attempt to define whites as the true working class in America at the expense of blacks and Latinos?" We have no idea what that could mean. Mason didn't try to explain.

By normal journalistic standards, Gray's essay didn't much seem to make sense. That made it perfect for the Sunday Post. When it comes to issues of gender and race, the liberal world has largely stopped attempting to fashion traditional coherent argument. We prefer to advance overwrought fears and claims.

Is the new "Roseanne," the series, some form of racial aggression? Only time will tell. But Roseanne the person is a different entity from "Roseanne" the series, and in this age of Donald J. Trump, there's a whole lot to ponder there.

In her column in the Times, Gay referred to various claims and assertions made by Roseanne the person. These claims and assertions weren't made as part of "Roseanne" the series, but there may be a lot to learn from them all the same.

Roseanne the person seems to have embraced a lot of somewhat peculiar beliefs down through the years. In another recent New York Times column, Michelle Goldberg provided a sample of same.

These beliefs by Roseanne the person may never turn up on "Roseanne" the series. But they speak to the vast problem of the current age.

Is our president stark raving mad? Since he holds the nuclear codes, we should probably hope that he isn't.

That's the skinny on Donald J. Trump. But what's the skinny on Roseanne Barr the person? And what's the skinny on us?

We live at a time when crazy belief has become major big business. Three new technologies—talk radio, the Internet and cable news—are largely devoted to helping us the people swallow ludicrous tribal beliefs.

How many crazy things are we the people prepared to believe? How many silly things are we liberals willing to swallow? The answer seems clear:

A lot.

We liked Roseanne Barr the person, a lot, when we met her in 1986. Since then, she has advanced some peculiar beliefs. Meanwhile, we liberals seem to have very few skills, and not a whole lot of discernment.

Crazy beliefs mixed with liberal derangement ended up sending Trump to the White House. Did he stage some performance art in Moscow as a lunatic way of trashing Obama?

If he did, he's stark raving mad. Even as we foolishly thrill to the perfect kink of it all, it seems to us that we better hope that he actually didn't.