Perhaps the only thing as well-documented as Donald Trump's staggering incompetence at the task of being president is his deep, abiding love of staying up late and watching cable news, listening very intently to whatever the man—or woman, I suppose, but something tells me he pays more attention to the men—on Fox News has to say. If one of Rupert Murdoch's fatuous talking heads manages to pique the President's interest with just the right incendiary comment, you can pretty much set your watch by the @realDonaldTrump tweet that parrots back that same talking point.

With this phenomenon in mind, consider the president's Friday afternoon, which appeared to be passing quietly and uneventfully enough, until, suddenly:

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Although this tweet launched a thousands tweets breathlessly concluding that the President had decided to stop being coy about his dreams of authoritarian governance, cooler heads quickly prevailed, as numerous outlets kindly pointed out that this is a pretty standard practice for new presidents as they prepare to appoint like-minded U.S. attorneys.

What's still odd, though, is the timing of the White House's announcement. Why yesterday? And why demand the resignations of all the holdovers at the same time, instead of, as many recent presidents have elected to do, proceeding in a more careful, deliberate manner?

One potential explanation involves the barely-coherent late-night missives of noted martial artist Sean Hannity, the stunningly gullible Fox News personality whose early support for Trump has improbably transformed him from laughingstock of the cable news universe to a legitimate force in political punditry. Guess what scorching take he offered on Thursday night?

Sure enough, at 10 o'clock, as promised:

After citing to President Lincoln (topical!), who apparently fired some three-quarters of the previous administration's holdover bureaucrats when he took office over a century and a half ago, Hannity concluded:

It's time now for President Trump to follow Abraham Lincoln's example and fire anyone and everyone who is actively working against him in government. After all, even former President Bill Clinton, he utilized this tactic back in 1993. He fired all 93 U.S. attorneys. All of them....It's very important for President Trump to act right now.

Needless to say, with rapid results like this on his résumé, Sean Hannity's case for inclusion in next week's Shadow President Power Rankings is already looking very strong.

Listen, it's possible that simultaneously axing all of these U.S. attorneys—on a Friday afternoon, without warning, and after seven full weeks in the White House—was part of the plan all along. Given the President's track record, though, it seems more likely that Trump heard an angry man yelling on the TV last night, nodded along, and then woke up the next day and did exactly as he was told. It's not yet clear how far his obedience to whatever he hears on Fox News extends, but if the President starts buying doomsday survivalist kits or touts the virtues of Life Alert during his next weekly address, we'll know soon enough.

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