Given that former president Donald Trump is a relentless, proven, consistent, pathological liar, why doesn't that fact preface every new report of his latest fabrication?
Why float each new fib as if there were even the possibility of being true?
For instance, his claim that he "had to run the military" while Mike Esper was secretary of defense, the typical ad hominem smokescreen in response to the jaw-dropping claims in Esper's new memoir, A Secret Oath.
In a sane America, the secretary of defense revealing that the ever-fibbing president wanted to fire missiles into Mexico and then pretend we hadn't, or bring in soldiers to shoot Black Lives Matter protesters, would have been huge news and led to the gravest crisis.
But we no longer live in that world. In this world, it barely caused a ripple. In this world, it's just Monday, with news Tuesday sure to efface it with something even more horrendous.
Because no excess of Trump's is damaging. To him. His fans literally do not care what comes out, because the source can always be impugned, and his fan base will never falter. Thus he can shrug off the truth and plaster it over with a thick crust of lies that neither he nor his audience believe.
"What need we fear who knows it," Macbeth asks, "when none can call our power to account?"