“. . . In the long run, weasels and liars never hold the field, so long as good people stand up. Not a lot of schools or streets named for Joe McCarthy,” former FBI director James Comey tweeted on Thursday. Oh but Jim, the long run does seem awfully long right now, and alas, the weasels and liars appear to be firmly in command. Friday saw the release of the now-notorious “Nunes memo,” a three-page document that the president thinks has the power to exonerate him from whatever crimes he may eventually be charged with. On Saturday morning he tweeted, “This memo totally vindicates ‘Trump’ in probe. But the Russian Witch Hunt goes on and on. Their [sic] was no Collusion and there was no Obstruction (the word now used because, after one year of looking endlessly and finding NOTHING, collusion is dead). This is an American disgrace!” The document, which House Republicans voted to release (they did not extend the same courtesy to the Democratic rebuttal—talk about American disgraces) alleges—stay with me now!—that the Steele memorandum (a dossier that asserts, among many other things, that Trump once had a kinky romp with Russian prostitutes in Moscow, which the White House denies) was used as the basis for the FBI seeking a FISA warrant to investigate Carter Page.

If this is beginning to seem as convoluted as a 900-page Russian novel, with characters popping in and out and plot lines twisting and turning, if you are scratching your head wondering—wait—who is Carter Page? What’s a FISA warrant?—you are not alone. The crazy complexities of the story, the shifting cast of weasels and liars, nevertheless boils down, in many eyes, to a single conclusion—the memo is meant to provide a rationale for Trump to demonize the FBI and his own justice department, and to fire Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. And why does Trump hate Rod so much? Because Rod is the guy who could fire special counsel Robert Mueller, head of the Russia probe, but Rod says he doesn’t want to!

Still not clear? Don’t blame us. On Friday, when a reporter asked the president whether he had confidence in Rosenstein, the commander in chief answered, “You figure that one out.” Like a student who hasn’t studied and is forced to give an oral report, Trump stumbled his way through a response to the memo’s release. (He couldn’t even read three pages?) “What’s going on in this country, I think it is a disgrace,” he spluttered on Friday. “When you look at that, and you see that, and so many other things, what’s going on, a lot of people should be ashamed of themselves, and much worse than that.”

In other news of the week—though none much worse than that!—White House Communications Director Hope Hicks is potentially in hot water over that infernal Trump Tower meeting with Russian operatives and the ensuing cover-up; Stormy Daniels went on Jimmy Kimmel and issued a non-denial denial regarding her non-disclosure agreement; and Andrew McCabe, the former FBI deputy director, sped up his early retirement and flew the FBI coop, effective immediately. (Or did he? Don Jr., aka Fredo Corleone, tweeted on Thursday, re the memo: “It was good enough to fire McCabe . . .”)

If you are wishing right now that you could take early retirement from this whole business as well, who can blame you? It’s exhausting living on the other side of the looking glass, where even Richard Nixon seems sagacious in comparison, where all we can hope for is a surprise halftime appearance today from a half-clothed Janet Jackson and the prospect that at least one player will take a knee.