The Cracker Factory was open for business outside the White House on Wednesday morning. Speaker Nancy Pelosi came out of a meeting with her caucus in the House and told reporters that she believed that "the president* was involved in a cover-up." Then, she and Chuck Schumer, both apparently firm believers in the power of hope over experience, went to the White House to talk about infrastructure. El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago thereupon told them he wouldn't be doing any deals while the House persists in investigating him and walked out. This might have been considered a shrewd power play, if the president* hadn't then gone out into his driveway and lost his shit entirely.

This was an "avail" of demented perfection. The man who bought off Stormy Daniels so thoroughly that his bagman is in the federal sneezer said, "I don't do cover-ups," and, against all odds, his tongue did not burn with fire. The constitutional genius with the world's greatest brain made certain to remind Democrats that, as unlikely as this sounds, one day in the far distant future—of the year, say, 1998—a Republican Congress might bring "the I-word" against a Democratic president for frivolous reasons. I mean, good lord, the Clintons came to one of his weddings. Didn't they talk? The man has a brain of tapioca.

Otherwise, the press availability was pretty much an impromptu performance of The Caine Mutiny Court Martial. More talk of witch-hunts and hoaxes and a lot of yammering about how transparent he's been and a monstrous exaggeration of his alleged accomplishments. One can picture White House aides hiding under desks and skulking down back alleys in search of noonday whiskey. And, as the reports that leaked out in the immediate aftermath of the meeting revealed, the president* went somewhat berserk even by his own standards and walked out after three whole minutes. Pelosi responded at her own news conference by slipping in the Italian-Catholic version of the shiv used by Southern Belles when they say, "Bless Your Heart."

"I pray for the President of the United States and for our country," she said.

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

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