Let's see who's been scrambling for lifeboats on Friday.

Well, there's the Cleveland Clinic.

And the American Cancer Society. And the Friends of Magen.

And some members of something called the Presidential Commission on Arts and Humanities. From The Washington Post:

Members of the President's Committee are drawn from Broadway, Hollywood, and the broader arts and entertainment community and said in a letter to Trump that "Your words and actions push us all further away from the freedoms we are guaranteed." "Reproach and censure in the strongest possible terms are necessary following your support of the hate groups and terrorists who killed and injured fellow Americans in Charlottesville," the commissioners wrote in a letter sent to the White House on Friday morning. "The false equivalencies you push cannot stand. The Administration's refusal to quickly and unequivocally condemn the cancer of hatred only further emboldens those who wish America ill. We cannot sit idly by, the way that your West Wing advisors have, without speaking out against your words and actions."

Right now, the president* is wandering through American political life wearing a bell to warn people of his approach. But you know who's hanging in there?

His preachers.

ThinkProgress has noted this phenomenon.

But as of Thursday morning, none of Trump's religious counselors appear to have cut ties with the president or even renounced his remarks. Instead, most have condemned white supremacy while also publicly defending the president, with many saying his words are being misconstrued — although Trump's latest series of tweets regarding statues may be testing some. "Regarding any calls to resign from the advisory council, I'm not going to do that," Rev. Tony Suarez, a Latino evangelical leader and an original member of Trump's Evangelical Executive Advisory Board during the campaign, told ThinkProgress on Thursday. "I think that we have the heart of pastors. We have a pastoral heart. We don't walk away in times of trouble. I believe that's why we were called to our job."

Well, that's a perfectly reasonable explanation, if you buy the vision of some pastors talking to the president*, trying to heal his soul to the point at which his soul tells him that Nazis are bad. Or, maybe, a pastor telling him that repeating that racist lie about General Pershing really makes it seem as though his contrition is not genuine. Is there any public evidence that and of this is happening?

And the Gospel Of Both Sides is being preached vigorously anyway.

Moore later told ABC that he believes "the way some in the media and the administration as well as other politicians and also activists — Republican and Democrat, liberals and conservatives — have handled the Charlottesville incident has at times been unhelpful, too emotional and insensitive." Others have taken even stronger supportive stances. Jerry Falwell Jr., president of Liberty, called Trump's words "bold" and "truthful" on Twitter.

Jesus wept.

UPDATE (1:55 p.m.)—The folks on the presidential arts and humanities commission threw a nice elbow on the way out the door.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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