OK, fine, let’s write about the North Korea thing. When Donald Trump says something truly preposterous, the usual response is for someone in the White House to suggest anonymously that he didn’t really mean it. This can take many forms, and today it took this one:
WH officials take issue with “people on TV who know nothing about North Korea” interpreting “fire & fury” as nuclear escalation, per source. https://t.co/1uicBCesZL
— Philip Rucker (@PhilipRucker) August 9, 2017
Goodness. How could these morons interpret “fire and fury like the world has never seen” as a nuclear attack? He was just talking about, um, a new and improved kind of napalm. Or, you know, a really spectacular Aurora Borealis. Or a really nasty tweet. We also have this:
Per WH sources: Trump improvised ‘fire and fury’ — paper he looked was an opioid fact sheet. Kelly ‘surprised’ not shocked… more tk
— Glenn Thrush (@GlennThrush) August 9, 2017
Ah, so this wasn’t a prepared statement after all. I thought that sounded iffy from the start. Trump was just looking at an opioid fact sheet. This explains a lot of things, as my exclusive blow-up of the document shows:
Meanwhile, Rex Tillerson is telling us that the US is totally willing to talk things over with the North Koreans: “I think the president just wanted to be clear to the North Korean regime that the U.S. has the unquestionable ability to defend itself, will defend itself and its allies, and I think it was important that he deliver that message to avoid any miscalculation on their part.”
Yeah. Trump was just trying to avoid any miscalculations. That’s the ticket.