At his rally in Wisconsin on Wednesday, the president* declined to be as much of a reckless blowhard as he usually is, probably because someone, or a bunch of someones, is currently mailing explosive devices hither and yon, and even this president* isn't that much of an insensitive boor. He left that job to his spokesdrone, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, whose soul currently resides in hell's ashtray. From Business Insider:

Sanders also claimed "90%" of the media's coverage of Trump is negative. "The president is certainly not responsible for sending suspicious packages to someone, no more than Bernie Sanders was responsible for a supporter of his shooting up a Republican baseball field practice last year," Sanders said, referring to the shooting that left Republican Rep. Steve Scalise critically injured. When asked whether Trump regretted any comments he's made regarding the press or his political opponents, Sanders said he has "condemned violence in all forms and has done that since day one and will continue to do that, but certainly feels that everyone has a role to play."

I went to a lot of Bernie Sanders rallies in 2016, and I didn't once hear him tell his followers to "beat the crap" out of someone. Nor did any TV reporters require Secret Service protection the way MSNBC's Katy Tur did after one of the president*'s rallies. And the last half of Sanders's statement is more of a lie than the first half is.

Chip Somodevilla Getty Images

Naturally, the folks at CNN—who were targeted for, you know, death—were not thrilled.

"Actually, the very first thing CNN was evacuate our NYC offices because of a bomb threat," Jake Tapper tweeted. "And I didn't hear one CNN employee on TV or privately accuse anyone other than the bomber/s of being responsible for the devices. Not one."

As we get closer to the election, what SarahHuck said is going to harden into conventional wisdom among the president*'s fans. The odds are overwhelming that this process will be strengthened from her podium, and from that of the president, who will be doing a rally Friday night in Charlotte. By Election Day, a substantial portion of the president*'s base will believe that Maxine Waters tried to blow herself up. This already may be the case. The instigation of morons is not in the job description of the White House press secretary, nor is it in the job description of her boss. But everything is different now, or so people tell me.

Respond to this post on the Esquire Politics Facebook page here.

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

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io