In his first work, On the Heights of Despair, the dour Romanian philosopher Emil Cioran wrote, “No matter which way we go, it is no better than any other. It is all the same whether you achieve something or not, have faith or not, just as it is all the same whether you cry or remain silent.” These words, no doubt, are comfort to President Donald Trump, whose sixth week in office gave him, for one brief moment, the widespread acclaim from the media that he has desired his entire life—only to see it disappear (like tears, in rain) after a bombshell report revealed that Attorney General Jeff Sessions lied under oath to Congress about his contacts in 2016 with members of the Russian government.

It was a week of speeches. Trump’s CPAC address was aimed at firing up his base, while his address to a joint session of Congress was aimed at buttering up the pundit class. The reception to the latter was a testament to how little has gone right for Trump in his first six weeks—the only other thing he’s done to general acclaim has been the nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. That Trump got points for not screwing either of them up—and they’re very hard to screw up!—shows just how low the bar for Trump is. He seemed to get points for merely facing in the right direction.

And yet ... it is a bar that Trump and his administration cannot clear. Trump has been trying to be more disciplined, but not tweeting nonsense for a couple of days will only get you so far, especially when your entire presidential campaign staff was seemingly communicating with members of Russian intelligence.

On Friday, Trump addressed CPAC, the original nerd prom, where he read from his popular travel blog “Places Not To Go Because There Are Muslims There.”



“No matter the issue, Trump knows a guy” https://t.co/cIOonfB7Hy



Meet Jim, “a very, very substantial guy” who says Paris is no longer Paris pic.twitter.com/u2H7kiCbon — Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) February 24, 2017

Everything about this is funny. Politicians like to tell stories about everyday people, but Trump’s everyday person is a mega-rich guy who is mad that he can’t go on vacation anymore because Muslims. Poor Jim! Sacre bleu!