On a scale of Trump by @BloggersRUs

On a scale of Trump

by Tom Sullivan

Vice President Mike Pence in his address to the Munich Security Conference on Saturday sent world leaders greeting "from the 45th president of the United States of America, President Donald Trump." He paused for applause, his eyes turned down to the podium through 5 seconds of stony silence before continuing. Trump finally achieved what he has long wanted. "They" weren't laughing at "us" anymore.

Ivanka Trump is the only person in audience who doesn’t applaud after Angela Merkel points out the absurdity of Trump claiming German cars are a national security threat pic.twitter.com/Op11wls73R
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 16, 2019

German Chancellor Angela Merkel addressed the conference first, sharply critical of Trump's handling of international security matters. "[U]nleashing a stinging, point-by-point takedown of the administration’s tendency to treat its allies as adversaries," the Washington Post reports, adding that the international order once led by the United States “has collapsed into many tiny parts.”

Merkel highlighted the absurdity of Trump calling BMWs a threat to U.S. security when the German firm's largest factory is in South Carolina and exports to China.

The audience applauded, grinning. Seated among them, Ivanka Trump did not.

Pence's reception in Munich echoed the cold one he received earlier at the U.S.-called conference on Middle East security in Warsaw, Poland. Originally billed as a conference of the anti-Iran coalition, the conference script shifted to general Middle East matters. Fred Kaplan writes, "Few were fooled; most Europeans, to the extent they attended at all, sent lower-level diplomats rather than heads of state or foreign ministers—a clear signal that they assumed no important decisions or remarks would be made."

OMG -- Pence was visibly shook in Poland when he received absolutely no reaction to what was clearly supposed to be an applause line about how "the time has come for our European partners to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal." pic.twitter.com/biRxARZkcM
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 16, 2019

The sitting president attended neither conference and went golfing at Mar-a-Lago after declaring a national emergency over funding for his border wall.

Trump began his week in El Paso, TX reciting familiar lies about violent gangs of drug dealers and human smugglers, and denial of data indicating there is no crisis.

“Just remember, what you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening,” Trump told the crowd when he was not trying to downplay the size of an upbeat counter-rally organized nearby by Beto O'Rourke. It's always about size.

Commenting on Trump's "official" height of 6-foot-3 confirmed in a memorandum from his doctor, a bemused Rachel Maddow displayed a series of images of men 6-foot-2 who appear taller beside him.

At his Rose Garden press conference on Friday, Trump again cited unsubstantiated claims of an immigrant invasion, bristling at reporters question his assertion of fact by fiat. And with a childish, sing-song delivery, he complained how he would have to fight to have his order upheld in the courts.

How does one even evaluate the week on a scale of Trump? What does one do with a president who likes to sign documents with personalized Sharpies and hold them up for the camera, "Look, Ma!" style? What does one do with a president best left at a low table in the corner with some crayons, construction paper, a pair of blunt-nosed scissors, and a jar of paste?