I warn you, however: it you try and are serious, I’ll may ban you for being dishonest, or too stupid to participate in an ethics colloquy.

Aaron Blake, a senior political reporter for Washington Post who hails from Minnesota (oh-oh!) authored this steaming pile of bias for, no surprise, CNN. The title: “Why Trump accepting Machado’s Nobel Peace Prize is no laughing matter.” Somehow, this Trump Deranged mega-hack argues that there is something sinister about the President of the United States accepting a sincere gift from a foreign visitor. The essay itself is the essence of Trump Derangement. It defines the warped thought processes whereby anything this President does is by definition wrong because he did it.

Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado has explained, several times, why she handed over her Nobel Peace Prize to the President, saying, graciously, “He deserves it.” A very strong argument can be made that she’s right on the facts, but never mind: Blake jumps immediately to the worst imaginable appeal to authority: he notes in his second paragraph that Jimmy Kimmel, easily the most repellent personality on network television today, made fun of the award. The column, incredibly, manages to go down hill from there…

• “Trump has accepted someone else’s Nobel medal, even as the Nobel committee has made it abundantly clear that the award itself is not transferrable.” How dare he accept a heartfelt gift! Of course the honor isn’t transferable Blake, you ass, and so what? Have you ever heard of anyone being mocked for accepting a recipient’s gift of a Congressional Medal of Honor, or a Silver Star (like, say, me, from my father), a World Series ring or an Oscar? You haven’t because no one in their right mind would criticize either the giver or the recipient in such situations…unless the recipient happened to be that modern day Hitler, Donald Trump.
• “While this kind of ring-kissing has become the norm with Trump, it’s especially galling in this instance” It’s not “ring-kissing” when a foreign dignitary gives something of value to the President of the United States; in fact, it’s customary. Nobody accused the President of “kissing the ring” of King Charles when he gave the UK monarch a replica of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s West Point sword. Blake is just re-cycling the tiresome “bend a knee” talking point the Axis trots out any time anyone or any organization doesn’t spit in the President’s face. Hackery. But as the late James Earl Jones once intoned, “This is CNN!”
• “You could certainly be forgiven for thinking Machado felt pressured into handing over the medal.”  I wouldn’t forgive you. The woman wants something from Trump, and the gift is a legitimate way of endearing herself to him because it never hurts to be liked by the President of the United States.  Blake is engaging in the “psychic news” variety of fake news, an Axis favorite. This one is in two stages: first, you read Machado’s thoughts to reach the conclusion that most underminds the motive for the gift, then you somehow assume that Trump applied coercion without any evidence whatsoever.
• “And regardless, the whole thing raises the prospect that some very serious foreign policy decisions with massive implications are being influenced, at least in part, through personal flattery…” Wow, Blake has never read any history whatsoever, apparently, and is equally unfamiliar with the Cognitive Dissonance Scale. Franklin Roosevelt frequently said nice things about Josef Stalin. Winston Churchill often said nice things about FDR. Lloyd George complimented Woodrow Wilson and vice-versa. If Donald Trump had only flattered Sen John McCain rather than gratuitously insulting him, Congress wouldn’t be fighting over Obamacare today. Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neill managed to occasionally cooperate with each other because each showed respect to the other and didn’t throw insults. Throughout centuries of world history, policy decisions with massive implications have been influenced by flattery and skillful personal relations.
• “One way to read all of this is that Trump’s lobbying campaign has paid off. But it paid off with a woman who just won a major award – one for which she quite literally risked her life – feeling compelled to turn it over less than three months later to try to keep Trump in her corner.” Asshole! First Blake says that “one way” to read the event is this, which is true: another way it to decide the Bugs Bunny was behind it all. Then Blake states his evidence-free speculation as fact.

Has Blake ever been honored with an award? I have, many times, and it is the recognition and the accomplishment that prompted that recognition that matters to me, not the physical plaque, or dinner, or watch, or statuette. That is how adults regard their awards as opposed to the honors. 

• “The other way to read this situation is that regardless of the pressure, Machado used the medal as a bargaining chip. You could hardly blame her for using it for leverage, given the stakes involved for her and her country.” That’s twice in one column you used “you could hardly blame.” Blake: did you dictate this on the way to the loo? 

• “But this dynamic also underscores the real risks of Trump’s emphasis on flattery. And it raises the prospect that decisions as serious as ousting a foreign leader and shaping that country’s future could be made, at least in part, based upon personal laurels.” The Trump Deranged really think that the President is so stupid, vain and incompetent that he would  decide how to proceed in a risky foreign policy matter with millions of lives at stake based on a symbolic gift. 
• “It’s for precisely this kind of reason that the founders put in the Constitution an “Emoluments Clause” that prevents federal officials from accepting gifts from foreign states without the consent of Congress.” Oh no, not that again. (It’s one of the failed impeachment theories floated as Democrats tried to remove Trump throughout his first term.) The Clause is a dead letter, it has never been invoked, and it would be impossible to invoke absent strong evidence of outright bribery.
• “A gift of a medal from Machado likely wouldn’t violate the emoluments clause, given she is not a head of state.”  But this hack brought it up anyway! The Emoluments Clause, head of state or not, even if it were still relevant, would never be triggered by a gift with minimal monetary value. Ike’s sword is worth more than Maduro’s gift.
• “Did her dedication of the award and flattery play any role in Trump’s decision to oust Maduro? Or will her handing over of the medal influence Trump’s future decisions as he exercises what he’s labeled “control” of her country?…We’ll probably never know.” The rhetoric is redolent of conspiracy theory tomes about Bigfoot, flaying saucers, and the Grassy Knoll. “Was the CIA secretly involved in JFK’s murder?” “Did President Roosevelt intentionally let Pearl Harbor be attacked to force the U.S. into the war?” “Did ancient visitors from another planet make the mysterious patterns on the planes of Peru, perhaps as guided for their spacecraft? ….We’ll probably never know.”
• “To the extent any of it influences his actions, it means decisions are being made at least in part based on Trump’s interest, rather than based on the country’s interest” Oh, bite me. This isn’t reporting, it isn’t analysis, it isn’t informative. The entire article is an “I hate and distrust the President , and everyone else should too, because even when he does what any other President would do and every previous President has done, (like accept a thoughtful gift) he’s doing it for a bad reason” rant.

But go ahead and defend it.

I dare you.

Post Script: In acting coaching and directing, we try to teach actors how to project genuine happiness when they smile on camera or on stage. You will seldom see a more fake smile than the one Trump wears in that photo. He has never been able to smile convincingly on cue.