Why is that news?

People seem confused over how the press covers a presi- dent who says pointless things that take your breath for their idiocy, self-absorption and self-delusion.

I did not just call your president an idiot. I referred to some of the things he says as idiocy.

Having postulated that the best thing to do with Donald Trump is pay him no mind, I thought a simple Q-and-A might be instructive. Q: Is it news that the president said we ought to shoot UV light under our skin and drink bleach to kill the coronavirus?

A: It would be news if he had said that. It would be bigger news if he had demonstrated on himself.

Q: Do you mean he didn’t say that? A: He did not. As political apologist and medical doctor Deborah Birx put it Sunday on a news talk show, the president merely was “musing” about those things. He was saying that, you know, we probably ought to get some medical doctors to help, but it sure is interesting that people are saying that maybe we could get UV light and disinfectants under our skin and into our bodies, because they say a good disinfectant works wonders on lungs. Trump said it would really be something if we fought this pandemic with such innovative thinking. Q: So, since he was only “musing,” it’s not news, right? A: Sure, it’s news. But there’s a difference sometimes between something being important and something being news. For a man defiling the office of president of the United States to extemporize from the White House on national television about his flight of fancy about using bleach internally as a virus-slayer … you have to do a news story on that. But that doesn’t make it important. It’s a one-day novelty, thus news on that basis. It will be rendered inoperative by retraction, denial or ridiculous excuse within hours, which does not mean it did not happen and that you can’t crack wise about it for days.

News is what happens. Importance depends on how what happens ages.

Here is what I mean: It is big news that the Cardinals won the sixth game of the World Series. But then it is important that the Yankees won the seventh the next day.

Personally, I’d go with a standard disclaimer in articles about wild Trump tweets or comments, something like, “A pattern of the Trump presidency has been for the president to make odd statements or post curious tweets, and to deny or retract them the next day, or to have his aides explain the next day that he didn’t say what he said.”

Q: So, again, what is the big deal if he was just, as you say, “musing,” and doing so in a way that we should stipulate ahead of time is without consequence?

A: There is no big deal. There is seldom any big deal to anything he says. He says it, or puts it on Twitter, and knowledgeable people talk him down the next day.

They’re like parents. They let Donnie rant for a while, and then after he’s huffed and puffed himself out, they pat him on the head and say, “It’s going to be all right. Not very many people drank any Lysol, so far as we know.”

When the president repeatedly says crazed things, each of those things is news because of who said it, but none is consequential, again because of who said it.

If you fail to record those things, the press is shirking its responsibility to make a full record for history of an American president.

Let’s say the president ran naked down Pennsylvania Avenue in broad daylight. There is no consequence to that. No one is harmed beyond momentary shock or offense. It is just one naked man, and the Secret Service could shield him and talk him back into his clothes.

But it is a news story, suitable for the bottom of the front page, with no photograph, please.

Anyway, this president would come out the next day and say he’d had clothes on.

And Republicans would say they plainly saw clothing.

Q: So, do you agree with Dr. Birx that it is distressing that the media still talk about the president’s musing about disinfectants 72 hours later when there is so much more of consequence to talk about?

A: Oh, pooh. Everybody wants to blame the media.

Everybody is talking about it 72 hours later.

The jokes are too easy. Humor is a fun thing for a frightful time. Here are mine: “The president’s plan is to reopen bars and, if anyone coughs, comp them a Clorox and tonic.”

And there was a photo of a house flying both an American flag and a Trump flag, and my caption was, “Looks like somebody’s been drinking the Lysol.”

If you can’t laugh at your president, how can you possibly endure him?