IF YOU'RE GONNA LIE, LIE WITH GUSTO, I GUESS

After all these years of lying, Donald Trump has it down to a conditioned reflex: Whenever he's caught having to respond to an embarrassing news story, he not only insists that the opposite of the truth is the truth, he frames his version of reality as a precedent-shattering superlative:

The Atlantic specifically reported that Trump didn't want to attend a ceremony at the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery in France in 2018 because he was concerned that the rain would dishevel his hair....

Trump insisted Thursday evening that the Secret Service had prevented him from attending the ceremony.

"I was ready to go to a ceremony. I had two of them, one the following day, it was pouring and I went to that. The reason it couldn't fly because it was raining about as hard as I've ever seen, and on top of that it was very, very foggy and the helicopter was unable to fly," he said.

Trump said "it was raining about as hard as I've ever seen"?

Really?





(A contemporary news report described the precipitation as "the lightest of drizzles.")

Trump fans apparently fall for this every time. It moves the Overton window in their gullible brains: If he said it was raining as hard as he'd ever seen, the rain must have been awful! Maybe it wasn't really the worst he'd ever seen, but it must have been really bad!

And for good measure, he tosses in an easily disproven lie, because why not?

Trump said he then "called home, I spoke to my wife and I said, 'I hate this. I came here to go to that ceremony.' And to the one that was the following day, which I did go to. I said I feel terribly. And that was the end of it."

As CNN has reported, first lady Melania Trump was on the same trip and was scheduled to visit the cemetery with the President. She was not in the US.

Yup -- it's right there on the White House website.

First Lady Melania Trump traveled with her husband to Paris, France to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Armistice that ended World War I....

On Saturday, Mrs. Trump traveled to the Élysée Palace....

Due to inclement weather, the First Lady and President were unable to visit the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery and Memorial in Belleau, France. The cemetery contains the graves of 2,289 American heroes....

But if CNN says so, it must be fake news, right?

In an August poll conducted by YouGov, 78% of Trump supporters said that he's "honest and trustworthy." Also, 88% of them said he "says what he believes," while only 8% said he "says what he thinks people want to hear."

When Trump is insulting blacks, women, Democrats, urbanites, and the media, I think he does say what he believes. But whether he's venting his bigotries and resentments or lying to try to protect his reputation and make himself not seem like a loathsome human being, he's saying what he thinks people want to hear -- at least he's saying what he thinks his people want to hear. That's always vitally important to him.