We have now reached the dog days of August when many people across America take their vacations, a much needed break after months of hard work at their appointed tasks.



Congress headed home last week having failed to produce a major legislative accomplishment in the first half-year of Donald Trump’s historic presidency. The president himself is taking his own repose up in New Jersey on what is described as a “working vacation.”



The public’s attention is therefore somewhere other than Washington, yet the establishment news media isn’t about to relinquish the anti-Trump momentum they’ve tried so hard to build since day one of his first term. The biased Fourth Estate is in a desperate search for any little tidbit that will further their Trump-is-a-goner narrative.



As an example, Jake Lahut of Politico reported late last week, “President Donald Trump has watched his ratings decline for months, but on Wednesday two respected polls showed that only a third of American voters view him favorably — a new low less than 200 days into his presidency.



“A new Quinnipiac University Poll has the president’s approval rating falling to 33 percent, while Gallup shows it at 36 percent. Quinnipiac's measurement is the lowest in the poll's tracking of the Trump administration thus far, and Gallup's is the lowest three-day average it has registered.”



The polls also showed roughly eight in ten Republicans still view Trump favorably. So yes, things have gone down a smidgen but it’s not a huge shift and considering the avalanche of negativity that surrounds Trump on a daily basis (from virtually all the major newspapers and cable channels), his approval rating is holding fairly steady.



Over the weekend the Real Clear Politics average had his rating at just under 39 percent. Move along -- nothing to see here.



In seeing the relentless media hysteria over President Trump it reminds me a little of the way I used to observe the behavior of the kids in my son’s preschool class. Even at age three or four the most dominant personality qualities of each child were clearly evident.



There were the leaders, the ones usually farthest away from the teachers on the fringes of the classroom examining and tinkering with the various toys, trying to determine how each one worked in order to maximize the amount of pure enjoyment from employing them.



The leaders were always surrounded by stragglers and followers, the kids who seemed to feed off the intellectual might of the leaders. As soon as the leaders figured out how to do something the followers would join in on the activity, clearly relishing the fact one of their peers had solved a puzzle, opening the door for them to get the same benefits from the exercise without having to do the hard brain work themselves.



Then there were the “needy” kids, the ones typically huddled around the teachers, often complaining about some sort of ailment and craving attention as though their momentary contentment depended on it. A tummy ache was usually enough of a reason to draw a compassionate reaction, more focus from the adults and if the kids were fortunate, a special privilege such as sitting next to the teacher or getting to drink from their juice box ahead of the other kids.



The “needy” group is today’s American establishment news media. They gather around the leaders and followers, dig in the mud, whine about boo boos, pick at sores and delight in reporting on whatever dirt or sympathy or blood they’re able to engender.



Such is the case with these opinion polls, which admittedly are just snapshots of general attitudes in time that could easily change with a random world event that manages to catch the attention of the distracted populace at any given moment.



Journalists crave the public’s attention just like the “needy” preschoolers desperately wanted approval of the teachers and adults back in their playschool days. It’s almost like you could go into any pre-K classroom in America and just handout journalism school scholarships fifteen years in advance based on the behavior of the puerile-minded kids.



The media’s fixation with special counsel Robert Mueller and his recent announcement that a grand jury has been impaneled is a perfect example of their “needy” nature. Deep down everyone knows the Russia-collusion allegations are a figment of the imaginations of people with a toddler’s mindset but still the media persists in pursuing them to the destructive ends of the country and Trump’s efforts to reform the government.



They also hope Mueller’s probe will lead to impeachment. But will it? Andrew C. McCarthy wrote at National Review, “The Constitution’s standard for impeachable conduct, ‘high crimes and misdemeanors,’ is a concept more analogous to military justice than to penal law. It involves violations of an officeholder’s public trust, transgressions that call into question his fitness to wield power and carry out high responsibilities. High crimes and misdemeanors need not be felonies chargeable in criminal court; they include all manner of execrable episodes and abuses of power that cause us to question a public official’s fitness.



“In other words, they are just the sort of thing you’d find in a report issued by a grand jury. Which means that a report issued by a grand jury could be just the sort of thing a special counsel might refer to Congress as the potential foundation for an impeachment case.”



McCarthy concluded we’re still a long way from that point but Mueller’s phishing expedition could turn up just the right amount of dirt to begin down the road to constitutionally removing Trump from office. McCarthy’s somber tone is troubling since he’s one of those who from the beginning argued that a lot of what is going on would not necessarily carry much legal weight.



And now we’re talking about impeachment?



Obama, Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, Maxine Waters, Elizabeth Warren and the entire Democrat party couldn’t be happier. The preschool-brained establishment media will certainly offer their assistance in dragging Trump before a tribunal and if the polls (cited above) are correct, about two-thirds of the public would be open to it as well.



If it ever comes to that the republic will likely not survive. The people who have been with Trump from the beginning – and there are a lot of them – would not stand by idly and watch their chosen leader be cashiered and derided by a collection of malcontents who never liked his personality and hated his proposals even more.



Ultimately this isn’t just about Donald Trump; it’s about discrediting the message and ideas Trump championed during his campaign. The same smear-job has been done to every Republican politician who managed to reach the top levels of government but Trump is singled out for special reprisal because he’s from outside the establishment.



To the Washington insiders Trump is a monster, and we can’t have monsters roaming the quiet countryside, now can we?



These ideologically compromised ruling class elites wouldn’t be content to just impeach Trump; they need to destroy him – and his ideas.



Andrew Klavan wrote at PJ Media, “…Democrats love to play off emotion to disguise their blithering hypocrisy, we know that. The Rule of Law, sacrosanct when it comes to allowing abortions, is suddenly sentimentalized out of existence when it comes to illegal immigration. This ideologically corrupt party would not hold a single elective office anywhere if they weren't protected and defended by an utterly biased and dishonest news media dedicated to smothering facts beneath Democrat talking points…



“On the positive side for those of us who support a good deal of what this administration is trying to do, the news media — which is pretty much like CNN across the board — is protecting the president from his own foibles. No matter how much chaos is generated by the White House — no matter how odd and even untrue are the president's tweets — the Trump gang seems a model of dignity, probity and integrity when seen against the backdrop of this sort of journalistic folly.”



Ah yes, there is a bit of a silver lining to all of this media/Democrat madness. It makes the tumultuous White House and Trump’s most enthusiastic defenders look sane by comparison.



It’s kind of like those preschoolers in my son’s former class. They wandered around, completely oblivious to the storm going on outside. To them, their entire world was confined within those four walls. The leaders led, the followers followed and the whiners… well, they whined.



Whoever said you needed to know more than what you learned in preschool?