To be or not to be (nutty)

A Russian Facebook ad from the 2016 election

Wednesday morning's Fake News headline was Maggie Haberman's claim in the NY Times (a failing newspaper, Trump says) that our former Homeland Security Chief, Kirstjen Nielson, was told by the Acting Chief of Staff, Mick Mulvaney, that any whisper of Russian interference in American elections--not in 2016, but in the present and the future as well--is to be studiously avoided in the Oval Office, lest the President lose it, which, according to Mueller and others, is something he does quite easily. "Don't bring it up," Mulvaney told Nielson, or words to that effect.

Even though it's her job. She is the head--or was--of Homeland Security.

"I am but mad, north by northwest," Hamlet said to his old buddies Rosencrantz and Guildenstern True? Some of the facts of Shakespeare's great tragedy belie Hamlet's being truly off his rocker, or seem to, as 'tis true with our president. Has he, like Hamlet, gone mad, or does he simply, for effect, act that way when it's in his interest to do it?

What's established beyond reasonable doubt--on both sides of the political aisle--is that our President often acts in ways that, for him, are resoundingly counterproductive. How about this?--just a little thing: why did he say his father was an immigrant when everyone knows the old man was born in the U.S. of A? Of what possible benefit is such a nutty fib?

Or this. Mueller got info from ten or twelve people--one-time aids and even supporters of Donald J.--who told him they acted in the president's best interests by not carrying out his worst commands. When asked about that, President Trump simply said his people always obey him, as if that dozen hadn't testified otherwise.

Real Trump haters can make a big deal out of Mulvaney's stifling any mention of Russian interference in upcoming elections by claiming our President doesn't need to be concerned with such a trifling matter. After all, the royal son-in-law this week characterized Russia's role in the 2016 as "a couple of Facebook ads." The truth is, his many supporters might say, his underlings can handle such tomfoolery.

End of discussion.

But what Mulvaney reportedly told her is not that Russian election interference is "a couple of Facebook ads." What he told her is that for the good of all concerned, talk of Russian meddling is better left unmentioned lest the Pres huff and puff and blow the house down.

In his famous summation(s), AG Barr claimed our President was at wit's end with news reports that were, by the AG's assessment, just plain wrong. Donald the victim, Donald the innocent was hideously prayed upon by those who would do him harm--so sad, poor guy.

So which is it? Donald the bully--50 mad dog tweets in the last 24 hours; or Donald the innocent victim?

I think it's both. Trump out-and-out lies however-many times a day even when he doesn't have to, because he will not suffer injury, not because he's so wildly fearsome but because, down deep, he's so insanely touchy.

And so we live with his schizophrenic nuttiness. Some days he's capable of bragging out the lies every fifteen minutes but is far too thin-skinned to hear a whisper of Russian meddling.

Good actors can play Hamlet mad as a hatter or sweet as an angel. Unfortunately, Hamlet is theater. For us, all the world is Trump's stage.

I just hope the end of all this torrid drama doesn't require buckets of blood. For Hamlet the Prince, the story did not end particularly well. We call the genre tragedy.