Fox News host Neil Cavuto decided to vent his frustration with President Trump yesterday, delivering a direct rebuke, addressing him in the second person. You can read the whole statement below after the commentary, or before, if you prefer.

I like Neil Cavuto. He’s a nice guy, he’s sincere, and he tries to be fair. He even had me on his show once. The format he chose, the Keith Olbermann direct address [Keith: “And why is it, SIR…”], I detest, and feel is pompous and inappropriate. Its a fake confrontation: Cavuto wouldn’t talk to the President like that if he were really in front of him, so it suggests boldness on his part that is illusory rather than real. It’s also arrogant grandstanding. Who is Cavuto to reprimand the President? He can give his opinion like anyone else, but talking to him through the camera like he was a naughty child is presumptuous.

In general, Cavuto’s point is undeniable: Trump’s constant puffery, exaggerations, contradictions, spontaneous utterances  and recklessness with the facts undermine his credibility, infuriate both allies and foes, and give ammunition to those who want to destroy him. In short, his habit is stupid. However, this was a known feature of the man’s style and character a decade ago. No, he can’t or won’t change, and that’s a weakness.  But who didn’t know this? Does Cavuto really think his tirade adds anything to the public’s knowledge? Does he think the President is going to reform because Neil Cavuto takes him to task?

In the specifics of his argument, however, Cavuto’s logic is so shaky that I wondered if he really thought his rant through, or, in the alternative, is not as smart as I thought he was. His initial sally is a non sequitur: the fact that President Trump frequently mangles the truth doesn’t make the news media  any less dishonest, incompetent and untrustworthy. Since a vast amount of the fake news polluting the public’s understanding of the issues involves fake news designed to undermine Trump, he has every right, and I believe a duty, to call it what it is.

Is Cavuto’s showboating just a member of the journalists’ club standing up for his colleagues against their adversary? It sure sounded like it.  He seemed to be mouthing the same excuse I hear from Facebook enablers of the biased media: “Yeah, well, OK, Rachel Maddow was hyping the Russian story and using dubious evidence, but Trump lies even more!” President Trump’s job is to run the country. Not being truthful can get in the way of that, but being accurate is not his job, nor is it one of his duties. Journalists, in contrast, are ethically obligated to inform the public truthfully no matter what whoppers a President may tell. The President doesn’t make the news media lie, so to say he provides the “ammunition” for fake news is nonsense. Cavuto is excusing lousy, dishonest, and divisive journalism.

Parts of Cavuto’s brief make no sense; this one, for example:

Like that time when you said rumors of Rex Tillerson’s departure at the State Department were false, until they weren’t,. Or that your former chief of staff, Reince Priebus, wasn’t going anywhere, until he was. Or your economic adviser Gary Cohn was doing a great job, until he wasn’t. When you absolutely loved Steve Bannon until you didn’t.

Every President, every CEO, every baseball general manager denies published rumors about imminent firings, resignations and departures until they are ready act. Trump could have been convinced that he wouldn’t dump Tillerson when the rumors were flying; Cavuto doesn’t know. Then, later, the President decided to make a move: was he supposed to keep a Secretary of State he decided had to go because of what he said weeks before? Is Cavuto really this naive about how leadership and management work?

That paragraph was so dumb it knocked the next one off the rails. “[You] denied reports you were ever thinking of firing [special counsel] Robert Mueller even as you now threaten getting involved at the Justice Department”—Huh? How is that relevant to Cavuto’s point? In fact, what does it even mean? How does the fact that the President threatens now, months after Mueller finished his job, “getting involved at the Justice Department,” show that the President was lying when he said he wasn’t considering firing the Special Prosecutor many months before?

If a broadcast journalist is going to presume to condemn the President on national television in such grandiose  style, he has to do a better job than that. Cavuto mixes bad and incoherent arguments with good ones, and I’m not sure that he knows the difference.

What I question most about Cavuto’s Lament, however, is the timing. There is virtually nothing in yesterday’s  rant that Cavuto couldn’t have mentioned months ago. Yet he chose the week when the Democrats concocted a desperate, contrived justification to begin impeachment proceedings to complain about Trump falsely alleging voter irregularities in New Hampshire? I suspect that he had written this a long time ago and didn’t have the guts to read it: how else to explain the absence of most recent shredding of his credibility, hisTrump’s silly machinations to avoid admitting that he was wrong about Hurricane Dorian threatening  Alabama?

Ah, but with Democrats screaming about imaginary crimes and the Times front page promoting a hearsay-based whistle-blower complaint like it was Nixon’s White House tapes, Cavuto decided it was safe to kick the President of the United Sates while he was down.

Nice.

Now here’s Neil Cavuto’s rebuke:

President Trump is fond of calling out the media on fake news,but is he the one giving them real ammunition? Maybe not intentionally. I’ll even give you the benefit of the doubt, Mr. President, say maybe not deliberately. But consistently, way too consistently.

So let me be clear, Mr. President, how can you drain the swamp if you’re the one who keeps muddying the waters? You didn’t know about that $130,000 payment to a porn star until you did. You said you knew nothing about how your former lawyer Michael Cohen handled this, until acknowledging today you were the guy behind the retainer payment that took care of this. You insist that money from the campaign or campaign contributions played no role in this transaction, of that you’re sure. Thing is not only 24 hours ago, sir, you couldn’t recall any of this, and you seemed very sure.

Now I’m not saying you’re a liar. You’re president, you’re busy, I’m just having a devil of a time figuring out which news is fake. Let’s just say your own words on lots of stuff give me, shall we say, lots of pause. Like the time you said the Russian didn’t interfere in the 2016 election, until a lot of Republicans had to remind you they did. You came back months later and you said, ‘well I never said that Russians didn’t meddle in the election,’ when in fact, you had. A lot.

Now none of this makes me a Never Trumper, just always confused. Like when you claimed your tax plan was the biggest in U.S. history, when it wasn’t. Or the bill that you signed that would make it all happen would cost you a fortune, when it turns out it is going to help you make a bigger fortune. Or that your job approval numbers really aren’t that bad relative to other presidents at this stage, when they’re actually worse than most presidents at this stage.

That can change, but what’s weird is that this pattern does not. Like that time when you said rumors of Rex Tillerson’s departure at the State Department were false, until they weren’t,. Or that your former chief of staff, Reince Priebus, wasn’t going anywhere, until he was. Or your economic adviser Gary Cohn was doing a great job, until he wasn’t. When you absolutely loved Steve Bannon until you didn’t.

Swore by [Attorney General] Jeff Sessions until you started swearing at Jeff Sessions. Had your legal team locked in place until it wasn’t. Denied reports you were ever thinking of firing [special counsel] Robert Mueller even as you now threaten getting involved at the Justice Department.

Now none of this makes you evil, but I’m sure you can understand why even your friends say your inconsistencies don’t make you look good or do anything to help you advance your policies, many of which are very good. It is not that these exaggerations and omissions and misstatements are now and then, more like now and then something else…always something else.”

Like the time you claimed that you signed more bills than any president ever, neglecting to mention the other four presidents, FDR, Truman, Carter and Clinton, who all signed more. Or brag about the national debt going down by $12 billion after your first month in office, even though it soared by nearly a trillion bucks now that you’re fifteen months in office.

But its not what you are omitting, Mr. President, it is what you keep stating and never correcting. Like when you said there was a serious voter fraud in New Hampshire, and there wasn’t. Said the same about repeated claims of voter fraud in Virginia, and there weren’t. Or that millions of illegals voted in the last election but they didn’t. Or the time you talked up your massive landslide in the electoral college, even though three out of four presidents before you had bigger electoral vote landslides in their elections.

Again, none of this makes what you say fake, just calling out the press for being so, a bit of a stretch. Your base probably might not care, but you should. I guess you’re too busy draining the swamp, to ever stop and smell the stink you’re creating. That’s your doing,. That’s your stink..

Mr. President, that’s your swamp.