I can't bear to post another picture of Donald Trump, so I'm using this cute Jack Russell puppy's photo instead. I would also vote for the puppy for President before I would vote for Donald Trump.

I had been having misgivings about annointing Donald Trump the Ethics Alarms Jerk of the Year last spring, since so many strong contenders emerged as the year went on—Rev. Terry Jones, Alec Baldwin, Newt, Leroy Fick, of course, and others. Trump, however, took matters in hand, and locked up his award with a flourish by announcing yesterday that he had forsaken the Republican Party and was seriously considering a third party run  for the presidency. For reaffirming my original assessment, thank-you, Donald Trump.  For everything else, curses are more appropriate.

The man is totally without shame. Two weeks ago, he was fully prepared to be the moderator of a GOP candidates debate…a blatant and outrageous conflict of interest for anyone who had the faintest glimmer of a presidential bid still in what passes for his mind. When all but the equally shameless Newt Gingrich and the desperate Rick Santorum declined to be Trump’s props, he withdrew as moderator, and now this. Is he running for President out of spite? I suppose that would be more admirable than his earlier fake pass at a run, which was evidently designed to pump up ratings for his reality show. This public buffoon is willing to distort the democratic process and throw a monkey wrench into an extraordinarily important national election on a whim, a lark, or a hissy fit.

Meanwhile, Trump has been playing the fools of conservative talk radio, especially Sean Hannity, like the cheap violins they are. They have repeatedly interviewed him with reverence, kow-towing to The Donald as if he was something much more than a freakish hybrid, a rich guy with the manners, perspective and personality of your friendly neighborhood loan shark. Trump claims he jumped party affiliation—again—because of the Republican House’s botched political handling of the Senate’s two-month payroll tax freeze. Quitting either party at any time is a fully rational act, since they are both offenses to nature, logic and common decency, but to bolt because the GOP was idiotic in its initial refusal to embrace an already idiotic measure—two months? TWO MONTHS??—is too feckless even for Donald Trump. He was either planning this all along, in which case he is a snake, or he woke up one morning and said, “Gee, I haven’t been in the news for a couple days—I think I’ll start talking about a third party presidential run!” That would make him a mega-jerk, which brings us back to where we started.

If any significant aspect of United States history is affected by this miserable excuse for a human being, it will  rank with assassinations, natural disasters, epidemics and other rotten luck that have impeded America’s progress through history. One would want to assume that Trump running for president would attract approximately as much interest as the candidacy of Joy Behar or Zippy the Pinhead, but beware: the moron vote in this country is wide and deep.

He’s already locked up Jerk of the Year in a sterling field. You should never underestimate Donald Trump, especially his total disregard for anyone and anything but himself.