President’s mendacity literally huge

The following editorial appeared in the New York Daily News:

The president of the United States would have you know that he’s “literally the exact opposite” of the uninformed, mendacious, undisciplined, Tasmanian devil of a man portrayed in the new book by legendary reporter Bob Woodward.

Which would mean he’s also the opposite of the man portrayed in books by Michael Wolff and Omarosa Manigault Newman. And by the anonymous senior official who wrote

anonymously in the New York Times that Trump’s “impulsiveness results in half-baked, ill-informed and occasionally reckless decisions that have to be walked back,” and that “there were early whispers within the cabinet of invoking the 25th Amendment, which would start a complex process for removing the president.”

There is, you see, a vast notright-wing conspiracy that’s weaving tall tales, and racking up hundreds of hours of interviews (probably all scripted) on tape to support those tales.

The facts show a stable man — a “stable genius,” to put it more Trumpily — who gets things done.

So it is absolutely, positively not the case that Trump ever called his attorney general “mentally retarded” or a “dumb Southerner.” His own chief of staff never called Trump an “idiot” or said “we’re in Crazytown.” His secretary of defense never said Trump’s understanding of a life-and-death national security question was like that of “a fifth- or sixth-grader.”

Nor is it true that Trump

bemoaned on Twitter at 2:25 p.m. on Sept. 3 that “two easy wins” for House Republicans were “now in doubt” because of criminal prosecutions brought against incumbent congressmen for insider trading and campaign fraud, attacking Attorney General Jeff Sessions (“Good job Jeff”) for putting the law and the evidence before political score-settling.

President Trump is not someone who would happily bend or break the rule of law to punish political adversaries and protect allies. That is literally the exact opposite of who he is.