My late wife might say of this post, “If you like Ann Althouse so much, why don’t you marry her?” (Ann-like tangent: my favorite use of that line was when Homer Simpson was in a TV debate with Rev. Lovejoy over gay marriage, and after the Springfield cleric cited the Bible, Homer retorted, “If you like the Bible so much, why don’t you marry it? Here, I’ll do it for you…”)

Ann is the all-time Ethics Alarms leader in “Ethics Quotes” of the month and week; she’s also been an Ethics Dunce here several times. I even suspended her from any mention in my posts after a particularly miserable performance. Her fascinating EA dosser is here.

I know I just posted about Ann’s recent four slam-bang post run, but her defenestration of Anti-Trump New Yorker hack Susan B. Glasser was masterful, and I bow down in awe and wonder. When the ex-University of Wisconsin law professor is on her game, nobody is better, and attention must be paid.

Glasser issued “It’s Time to Talk About Donald Trump’s Logorrhea/How many polite ways are there to ask whether the President of the United States is losing it?” , jumping on the “Let’s try the 25th Amendment!” Trump removal plan a Golden Oldie among the many that the Axis was pushing in his first term. That any journalist who sat idly by refusing to point out that Joe Biden’s brain was falling out of his ears in chunks has the gall now to make such a claim about Trump (literally all of my Trump-Deranged Facebook Friends keep returning to it) is disqualifying, but Ann doesn’t even need that low-hanging fruit to show us how Glasser cheated to please the Atlantic’s biased readers.

Glasser appealed to the authority of writer Thomas Mann, of all people, to find Trump demented, writing in part,

[I]n rambling on so much, Trump reveals just about everything one could ever want to know about him—his lack of discipline, his ignorance, his vanity, insecurity, and crudeness, and a mean streak that knows no limits. “It is remarkable how a man cannot summarize his thoughts in even the most general sort of way without betraying himself completely,” Thomas Mann wrote a century ago, in his novel “The Magic Mountain,” set in a sanitarium perched above the Swiss mountain town of Davos, where Trump spent the better part of this week proving to the stunned attendees of the annual World Economic Forum the continuing relevance of Mann’s observation….

[W]hen Trump reached the fulsome self-praise section of his speech, he explained that he was such an incredible peacemaker that he had even managed to end wars in places where he had not known they were happening. Imagine admitting this about yourself. Another quote from “The Magic Mountain” sprang to mind: “I know I am talking nonsense, but I’d rather go rambling on. . . .”

Ann begins her defenestration by declaring that she is “prepared for this” because she actually has read “The Magic Mountain” ( I also admire her for that: I gave up half-way through) and she goes on to prove that Glasser almost certainly hasn’t read “The Magic Mountain,” but was just cribbing:

“It’s not as though Glasser drew upon deep literary experience to come up with material from “The Magic Mountain.” It’s the famous book set in the location where Trump spoke [at Davos, Switzerland]. To quote it is like quoting your last fortune cookie or scrap of litter right at your feet. What does Glasser really know of “The Magic Mountain”? She’s got 2 quotes, and if you go to Goodreads, you’ll find both quotes within the top 6 quotes from the book. They are #5 and #6.”

Oooh! That’s gonna leave a mark. Althouse also points out that using Mann, who is famous (or infamous) for his gratuitous verbosity, as a critic of the President’s eccentric (annoying?) rambling style, is ironic to say the least. “Why isn’t Trump terse and to the point? Why isn’t Thomas Mann!!!?,” she writes.

Bingo.

Althouse also writes, defending Trump, “It’s not rambling. It’s the weave. There’s no acknowledgement that Trump himself has explained what he is doing. He calls it the weave. He’s in control of it. You just don’t like the elaborate tangles of verbiage.”

Later, amidst the deservedly positive comments from Ann’s readers, she adds, “I think those who are annoyed at Trump’s weave are appropriately rankling at his giant power move — controlling their time, requiring their silent endurance. But that doesn’t mean he’s got dementia! I’m objecting to characterizing him as mentally deficient, having a disability. That characterization allows them to feel superior, rather than subordinated. I can see why they prefer to think of it that way.”

That’s another astute observation applicable to Trump Derangement. What his haters really resent that he is effective more often than not. How dare he?

[Note: WordPress isn’t letting me break the page again. Sorry for the inconvenience.]