Be careful. Try any harder to put words in Pierce's mouth and you might pull something. I'll grant you that the journalistic rule around Trump seems to be never to ascribe to stupidity that which can be adequately explained by malice. I'll grant you, also, that there's more smoke blowing than there is fire to be found with Trump coverage. However, you'd have to be crazy to think there's nothing burning.

Tell me you don't think Trump and his government are perfect, because it kinda seems like you're so jaded by lousy news coverage that you won't accept the evidence of your own eyes any more.

No government is perfect. And never will be, because it involves people. Because it is imperfect, I firmly believe that we need as little of it as possible.

I believe my eyes, I just haven't seen ANY evidence of malfeasance. If I've missed it, please show me proof of corruption, Russians, or anything else that the #resist crowd is on about. A different political agenda is in play. No matter how much half the country dislikes it, it's not criminal. It's what the other half of the country lived with for two terms. We will survive, and if Trump is successful, we will thrive.

Smoke is proof of nothing when you have an entrenched power structure armed with matches and an agenda.

Here's how to create smoke. Somebody in a 3-letter agency calls up WaPo and says Trump likes furry porn. WaPo headlines it. NYT says "According to published reports, 17 intelligence agencies agree, Trump is a furry porn lover." CNN/MSNBC interrupts coverage and says Trump is too busy looking as furry porn to run the country. Buzzfeed runs "The trouble with Trumps porn addiction". The CTR and Shareblue brigades post variations of "Trump is a pervert". Late night talk show hosts run monologues on furries. SNL does a skit. 3 days later, on page 57, WaPo runs a one-sentence retraction. No one else does. That gets piled into the innuendo heap.

The media is deranged, and every piece that starts with unproven assumptions and does nothing but pass on more innuendos isn't journalism. except perhaps of the yellow sort.

I hope there are enough real journalists left that they can be a watchdog on the government. That should be their damn job. But all we've had for the last 8 years is cheerleaders. Now they are sad, angry, and lashing out in their grief that Obama didn't get that 3rd term after all. Their implosion is amusing to watch, in a sad sort of way.

All that can be true and you don't have to gouge your eyes out to avoid seeing Trump and his administration as they are, warts and all.

Next you'll be saying Paul Ryan's not a Social Darwinist until you see something notarized telling you so.

Pierce, on the other hand, will not use that name without reminding us that he's "the zombie-eyed granny starver from the Koch Bros. subsidiary formerly known as Minnesota." You can call that yellow journalism if you like, but there's salient truth in it.

I'm as disgusted by what passes for journalism in the Times and the Post and fill-in-the-blank as you are, but even I don't pretend there's nothing crooked happening at the highest levels of our national politics.

Maybe you're the townsfolk, sick to death of the child crying wolf all the time, perfectly happy to pretend not to hear him being gobbled up. Because c'mon, at some point, the Trump Administration's antics cease being explainable by stupidity alone.

Let me suggest another lens to view the administrations antics through.

Imagine a president trying to implement a sea change in a whole raft of policies. Against his doing so is the entire Democratic leadership, half the Republican leadership, the entirety of the traditional media, an entrenched bureaucracy, and half the country, all of whom seem to want to see him fail. Any mistake, misstep or perceived weakness is poured into the echo chamber and amplified.

Those opposed to the changes, particularly those in the media need to start asking themselves "What if he succeeds?"

Indeed. One wonders whether there is enough Russian blood to slake the thirst of the bezerkers in today's Democratic Party.

Still, the way you put it it's as if you're talking about somebody other than the most powerful man in the world, the President of the Confederate States of America.

The scenario you describe is familiar enough from the last presidency. We shall see, before this is over, what comes of electing the less effective evil. Someone who would say anything, promise anything, makiing crazy shit up as he went along, to get elected. My guess is that it's not going to be all sunshine and rainbows.

Edit: Me, I'm still waiting for President Obama, as he promised, to put on some comfortable shoes and walk the picket line with American autoworkers. Meanwhile, I have my knitting to keep busy with.

I'm still waiting on quite a few things Obama promised. Hell, I'm still waiting on things Reagan promised. You may have time to do a lot of knitting while Obama is looking to find the right pair of shoes. Long enough to knit a complete wardrobe.