The whiner-in-chief

Published 8:00 am Friday, July 28, 2017

One thing you can say for this president: You know what he is thinking, even at 6:12 a.m. on a Tuesday. He is not thinking about health care for his supporters, many of whom would lose all access if he had his way. He is not thinking about the threat of terrorism. He is not thinking about you.

He is thinking about the one and only subject he thinks of constantly: himself as a victim.

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The luckiest man on the globe is a pathological narcissist. He just can’t stop himself. Whine, whine, whine: If one of your kids behaved that way, you’d tell them to contain it, that not every thought that came into his or her head was worth sharing with the whole carpool, much less with the whole world.

But no one can get that through to our whiner in chief.

Over the weekend, he was complaining that Republicans are terrible at supporting their president. Come again? Last time I checked, the biggest problem Republicans face, looking toward the midterms, is not that they have supported the president too little but that they’ve supported him too much.

On Tuesday morning, with the Senate poised to vote on health care, Trump tweeted: “Attorney General Jeff Sessions has taken a VERY weak position on Hillary Clinton crimes (where are E-mails & DNC server) & Intel leakers!”

This followed his whining about the attorney general during what was supposed to be a meet-and-greet that he initiated with The New York Times (a publication that he’s repeatedly called “fake”); along with his whining about how his son released all the emails about his meeting with Putin’s people, whereas Hillary Clinton never released her emails.

Enough already. Clinton did not violate the law. She also did not win the election, in part because James Comey had the audacity to announce that he was reviewing more emails, while the Obama administration, knowing full well about the Russians’ connection to Trump, did not want to release that information lest they be accused of trying to influence the election. The Russians had no such qualms.

The DNC server? Who cares about the DNC server? And for that matter, who cares about Clinton’s emails? Not one of them involves a secret meeting with Putin’s agents about how to undermine the election. Not one of them involves Chelsea Clinton telling the Russian government that she would “love it” if they helped her trash Donald Trump.

President Trump, Hillary didn’t go to the Russians for help. Your son, son-in-law and campaign chairman did. It is not the attorney general’s fault, or Clinton’s fault, or Sessions’ fault.

If voters only knew then what we know now, Trump wouldn’t be sitting where he is. And instead of counting his lucky stars, he complains. Is that how you get to be rich and powerful? Is that how you act when you’re rich and powerful?

Clearly, the attorney general is on his way out. Trump is looking for any excuse in the book, when we all know the truth: that he expected his attorney general to protect him and his family from the consequences of their own treachery and to keep the Robert Muellers of the world out of his way so they could get away with all the improper contacts they had.

The president doesn’t care about ethical niceties. He’s above the law — remember?

So of course Trump wants to get rid of an attorney general who rightfully recused himself and find one who will fire Mueller. If Mueller is pushed out, he won’t be the only one to leave.

A crisis is coming. And when it does, Donald Trump will really have something to whine about.

To find out more about Susan Estrich and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.