PIECES OF WORK: Compagno is a piece of work!

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2025

Sociopathy and the stupid: For starters, let the word go forth to the nations:

The world isn't going to come to an end because the sitting president has chosen to demolish the East Wing of the White House.

For whatever it may be worth, the behavior by the sitting president may not have been illegal. Given the endless complexification of all our American systems, that question will never be nailed down in any definitive way. But in this morning's New York Times, one experienced observer says this:

Architects Urged a Review of Trump’s Ballroom. Cue the Demolition Crew.

[...]

Edward Lengel, who served as chief historian of the White House Historical Association for two years until 2018, said he had been getting questions about the process. “People have asked me if this is illegal. I don’t think this is illegal,” he said. “I think this is a big loophole that has always been there. Previous presidents have observed precedent and not tried to exploit that loophole.”

Is Lengel right? We have no idea. But the president decided to have his way, and he tore that building down.

The world isn't going to come to an end, but the following ought to be said:

The White House doesn't belong to the sitting president. He doesn't even pay rent.

The White House, including each of its wings, is the property of the United States government. The complex belongs to the American people—or at least, that used to be the case, before the current regime came to town.

L'etat, c'est moi, the new monarch has said. This has produced dual headlines such as these, as found in today's New York Times:

Trump Is Wasting No Time in Tearing Down the East Wing
President Trump initially said the ballroom construction would not dismantle parts of the White House. His officials now say it is cheaper and more structurally sound to simply demolish the East Wing.

Trump Dismisses Another Inspector General, Fueling Oversight Concerns
With the firing of the Export-Import Bank’s inspector general, the president has sidelined around two dozen of the watchdogs who seek out fraud and mismanagement in federal agencies.

Trump Empowers Election Deniers, Still Fixated on 2020 Grievances
The president has placed proponents of his false claims into government jobs while dismantling systems built to secure voting, raising fears that he aims to seize authority over elections ahead of next year’s midterms.

The second and third of those headlines today may involve points of greater concern. But the president's decision to demolish the East Wing, absent any consultation and in the face of previous claim, suggest s a very important point:

If this president isn't a sociopath, he may be able to fill the bill until a real sociopath comes along.

Is something wrong with President Trump? With the people currently around him?

We've asked and we've asked and we've asked and we've asked. As we noted again, the finer people in Blue America aren't willing to go down that road. That said:

In recent weeks, he has given us a bizarre Truth Social post about those magic beds. He has told us that the Democratic Party is "the party of Satan."

He has posted a video in which he dumps barrels of human waste on his opponents' heads. And he has demolished the entire East Wing, in the face of previous statements of assurance.

Is something wrong with this man? To her credit, his niece was able to pity the child who was born to her own grandfather, who she describes as a sociopath.

That said, she speculated that her uncle may may also be a "sociopath." His demolition of property which wasn't his may seem to support some such tragic hypothesis.

Is something clinically wrong with President Trump? If so, that's a human tragedy—but your journalists have sworn not to ask.

That said, our rapidly failing society may be afflicted with something which even worse. Forget about the possible "sociopathy." Let's turn to the monstrously Stupid.

Last night's Gutfeld! program was worse. But for now, we're going to start with the opening segment of yesterday's The Five.

Thanks to the works of the Fox News Channel (and others), our society is awash in the artefacts of the astoundingly Stupid. Yesterday afternoon, at 5 o'clock sharp, guest co-host Emily Compagno, reciting obediently, introduced Segment One:

COMPAGNO (10/22/25): Hello, everyone. I'm Emily Compagno...It's 5 o'clock in New York City, and this is The Five.

The liberals are wokesing [sic] themselves into peak derangement over the construction of Trump's big, beautiful ballroom.

Hillary Clinton said, quote, "It's not his house. It's your house. And he's destroying it."

Compagno gave two more examples of deranged complaints by the libs. And then, she was even willing to read what follows. From the teleprompter to her lips to Red America's ears:

COMPAGNO: Never mind that Barack Obama built his basketball court, Richard Nixon rolled in a bowling alley, and plenty of other presidents did a little home renovation of their own. But President Trump adds a tax-payer free ballroom and suddenly the left is doing the meltdown mambo.

No, you can't get dumber. At 5:05, we got this:

COMPAGNO: I want to talk about the hypocrisy, for example, of Hillary Clinton chiming in. Her husband was one of those presidents. He, for example, brought the putting green closer to the Oval Office, so after he enjoys his cigars, he can take less steps?

She personally oversaw a complete renovation of the inside of the dining room. The list goes on. Are they going to exhume Woodrow Wilson for destroying the colonial garden?

No, you can't get dumber.

Bill Clinton moved the putting green, apparently to the original site of President Eisenhower's putting green. President Nixon installed a one-lane bowling alley in the White House basement.

To Compagno, demolishing the entire East Wing, absent any consultation and in the face of previous reassurance that the East Wing wouldn't even be touched, is an action on the order of such renovations as that.

The reference to President Clinton's cigars was the mandated bow to his relationship with Monica Lewinsky. People like Compagno insist on playing these games in support of the president they revere—the president who has been accused of sexual misconduct by at least 28 women, the president who is refusing to release the Epstein files.

Also, and just for the record:

In 1913, it was apparently Mrs. Woodrow Wilson who "destroyed the colonial garden." Actually, she replaced the colonial garden with what came to be called the Rose Garden, as you can recall in this report from The White House Museum.

Thanks to the leading authority on the topic, the story of the putting green can be remembered here. The (one-lane) basement bowling alley can be seen in the photographs which accompany this report.

Bill Clinton moved the putting green from one spot to another! But so it goes what an inveterate nutcase like Compagno starts pushing the corporate line—and this tribalized hysteria is now a major part of the failing American discourse. 

This imitation of human life takes place on the Fox News Channel from 5 a.m. right on into the night. There are plenty of real complaints which can be made, in a serious way, about Democratic Party governance and Blue American cultural positions—but the CEO of the Fox News Channel is determined to send in the clowns.

"There's no way to spin this," Compagno finally said, as she threw to Jesse Watters. "He's doing this for the people," she confidently announced.

"You're very excited today, aren't you, Emily?" Watters surprisingly said. Soon, he was offering his own irrelevant presentation about "the East Wing, or whatever you call it"—and yes, that's what he said

Remarkably, the messenger children of the Fox News Channel maintained this level of inanity all through the long broadcast night. If Clinton could move a putting green fifty yards, why couldn't President Trump demolish an historical building?

The rolling performance culminated in what may have been the craziest 17 minutes we've ever seen on an American "cable news" broadcast. We refer to the first 17 minutes of last evening's Gutfeld! show, during which Kat Timpf—the New York Times recently portrayed her as a beleaguered feminist—provided a striking account of the source of the fury within this stupidified tribe of lost, highly paid boys and girls.

You can't get dumber than what Compagno said. Because we've seen her many times on Gutfeld! shows, we weren't surprised by her rapid-fire anger or by her apparent true belief.

Needless to say, the producers who had fashioned her opening had been working from script. The Trump White House had already fashioned this brain-dead account of the way President Wilson "demolished the colonial garden." 

The channel, a mouthpiece for Trump, cut and pasted from there.

That said, the siting president has knocked the walls down—and he keeps firing providers of oversight. Along with that, it's the magic bed, and the plane dumping feces on the public's heads, and the Dems as "the party of Satan."

This is where our rapidly failing culture currently stands. In the face of our own Blue American silence, will there be some coming back?

Tomorrow: What Michelle Goldberg says she saw as the feces came raining down