doddering clown is more like it.

[....] Their confusing story of backchannel derring-do and investigative intrigue is made twistier by the fact that Trump can’t quite figure out the story he’s trying to tell about himself, and complicated further by the fact that no one in his party dares contradict or improve the wobbly tale he spins. That story is a farce on its face, a chaos of antique outrages and cable news non sequiturs filtered imperfectly through Trump’s gravy-drenched loaf of a brain. It depends for its motivation upon the secret honor of some of the most luridly dishonorable men in recent political history; the blackest possible satire of an alibi would scan the same way, and unfold along the same beats. The bickering over etiquette and scheduling — Turley bemoaned that impeachment was happening too fast, but on Thursday Trump demanded, in a very not-mad-actually-laughing tone, that Democrats “do it now, fast” — is in large part because there is really nothing else to argue about. More to the point, though, the carping, whinging befuddlement that defines Trump’s public performances has now largely replaced everything formerly understood as politics.

Only Trump would even dare to tell a story this shoddy. The man himself is a boorish fabulist and a fantasist; he has never wanted anything more than to be the main character on every single television channel, and damned if he hasn’t pulled it off. That disastrous casting is an issue that an election can fix, but the passivity with which all sides of the political culture fell into their roles as Trump’s supporting cast — the eagerness with which these two parties, each increasingly unrecognizable to the other, put a doddering authoritarian clown at the center of their two divergent arguments — seems incalculably worse. It would be nice to think that there was some way to talk about it.

from David Roth's There’s Nothing to Argue About @ NYMag, Dec. 6

I predict that some day you, Peter, are going to feel royally ripped off by your steadfast delusion about his man and his methods. You don't even realize how ridiculous you sound about your idolization sometimes, it's straight out of the tale the emperor has no clothes, while it becomes clearer every day and every way that he gives a damn about people like you and your concerns.