The best metaphor for Donald Trump's administration has somehow gotten even better.
Trump and his cronies have bloviated for weeks that vandals caused damage to repairs to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, going so far as to charge David Hearn, a former Olympic canoeist, with a felony. Surely you remember the crowing by Trump and Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, who tossed around phrases like "tremendous evidence" and "unchecked vandalism and civil disorder."
Not so fast.
On Friday, Pirro's office asked a Superior Court judge to drop the charges against Hearn. That wasn't all, not by a long shot. In the court filing, federal prosecutors said the damage to the pool was "the result of a flawed installation by the contractor"
and "the rush to complete the project prior to events associated with the America 250 celebration."
Vandals didn't damage the Reflecting Pool. Who could have guessed?
Well, maybe the vandalism at least contributed to the damage? Maybe that's a possibility?
Of course it's not.
"Given all of this newly discovered information, it is difficult to attribute the widespread damage to the reflecting pool to vandalism," according to the court filing.
Let's repeat all this, shall we? The damage to the Reflecting Pool, which Trump repeatedly assured Americans was the work of "sick, deranged" vandals, was actually caused by the work of the company owned by a Trump donor who received a no-bid contract to do the repairs. (It's cost more than $16 million so far, not the $1 million originally claimed, but who's counting?)
In other words, Trump lied. His minions lied. There's no other word for it. It's hardly the first time and it certainly won't be the last. But rarely is there such a blatant example of Trump's inability to accept responsibility for anything.
He could have said the contractor made mistakes, but they're fixing them. Sure, there would have been a day or two of BlueSky keyboard warriors making fun of him, but that would have been the extent of it. But Trump couldn't let it go. In fact, he doubled down.
No one is surprised that Trump lied
The most worrisome thing about all of this is that no one is surprised. As has been noted many times, every administration should be treated with healthy skepticism. That's not fake news, and it's not harassment. It's journalism, and Trump and his administration are allergic to it.
And the lies extend to far more than shoddy Reflecting Pool repairs. For instance, what, really, is the status of the war in Iran? Where is the supposed new evidence Trump boasted of in a nationally televised address that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him? Why won't Todd Blanche, the acting U.S. Attorney General who's aiming for the job permanently, offer a requested written guarantee that the $1.8 billion slush fund for "victims" of "prosecutorial abuse" — which to this bunch extends to the rioters who attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in an attempt to overturn the election — is dead for good?
And most of all, why do people keep putting up with it?
I wrote about the Reflecting Pool mess in June. As always happens, I heard from people who agreed with what I had to say, and from people who didn't. As also always happens, those who disagreed accused me of having "Trump Derangement Syndrome," and boasted about how I was wrong, how Trump was going to offer evidence, how this was going to really shut me up.
Nah.
Funny, no one has emailed back to say they were wrong.
If there is any good that can come out of such a disgraceful incident, it's that there is no wiggle room in this case for Trump and the others to scream about "fake news." The proof is right there, in the words provided not by unnamed sources or liberal politicians, but by Pirro and her office. They lied. The media didn't.
Though honestly, if that surprises you, you just haven't been paying attention.
Reach Goodykoontz at bill.goodykoontz@arizonarepublic.com. Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm. Media commentary with a side of snark? Sign up for The Watchlist newsletter with Bill Goodykoontz.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Trump lied about the Reflecting Pool 'vandalism.' It matters | Opinion
