MICHAEL MOORE DOESN'T UNDERSTAND DONALD TRUMP VERY WELL

Michael Moore's new documentary, Fahrenheit 11/9, had its U.S. premiere Thursday night in New York. This exchange took place on the red carpet:

Asked if he knew the identity of the anonymous New York Times op-ed leaker in Trump’s circle, Moore said: “No, but if you want me to make a wild guess, Trump wrote it or one of his minions wrote it.... He’s the master of distraction. He’s the King of the Misdirect. If we’ve ever known anything by now, it’s that he does things to get people to turn away and the line that is most identifiable in terms of what he wants the public to believe, the line that says, ‘don’t worry, adults are in the room.’ The idea is to get him to get us to calm down and look away from what he’s really doing.”

I'd assume this was just a joke on Moore's part, but he seems at least semi-serious about his explanation. And it's all wrong. Trump does appear to work very hard at creating distractions from news stories unfavorable to him -- unless we only think that's the case, and what we regard as distractions are really just Trump fighting every day to be the center of the media's attention, which for him is a primal need. What's clearly wrong about Moore's conjecture is the idea that Trump wants us to think, ‘don’t worry, adults are in the room.’ Trump obviously hates that idea. He think he's the adult in the room. The suggestion that he needs adult supervision is deeply offensive to him. Latest evidence: Defense Secretary Jim Mattis was quoted by Bob Woodward as saying that Trump has the "understanding of a fifth or sixth grader," and now there are fresh rumors that Trump will fire Mattis after the midterms.

We know that Trump could never have written the op-ed -- it contains too many words and ideas he's incapable of understanding. And, of course, it directly contradicts many of his stated positions. There are staffers smart enough to write it, but I can't imagine Trump would approve it. Trump's preferred tactics are direct blunderbuss attacks on opponents and distractions mounted with all the subtlety of a rampaging elephant (HEY!!! LOOK OVER HERE!!! I'M ATTACKING MAXINE WATERS!!!). In this administration, even the people with functioning gray matter don't play eleven-dimensional chess.

I don't know who wrote the op-ed, but Trump is incapable, and no Trump loyalist ever would have done it.