Secretary Sanders said the trip to Aisne-Marne was 2.5 hours by car. fxn.ws/2FcnVKq This administration is just bizarre in its eagerness to tell lies that *everyone* can see are lies, and for no reason. You've all got Google maps.
As it happens, right now, if you took the Péripherique, it could actually take that long: crashes this morning (I hope everyone is okay) have snarled traffic, causing a delay of 1:44 hours. But at the time he was scheduled to go, it would have been a one hour and 7 minute drive.
Visiting dignitaries with motorcades are a daily sight in Paris. They do not cause "disruption" to Paris any more than they cause "disruption" in DC. The city--to the extent they thought about it--was far more "disrupted" by the weirdness of a POTUS who serially claimed--
--that the light drizzle we were all walking in was too much for the helicopter than conveys the President of the US to handle (wait, you're a superpower?); that there was no back-up plan to drive (wait, you're a superpower?); that POTUS's staff can't use Google Maps (wait ... )
And that our President didn't feel it was important to visit a cemetary where *our own men* are buried. Also: If it was so hard to visit, how did Kelly and Dunford make it? Why not say whatever the truth was about why he didn't visit--
It couldn't possibly sound as bad as this series of weird excuses. What might the truth be? I don't know. Maybe he's got bone spurs again. But this *compulsion* never to tell the truth--and to lie in a way that requires his supporters constantly to engage in Doublethink--
is some kind of feature, not a bug, of his presidency. For some reason--I have't figured out what it is--many people like it that he gets away with telling whoppers. Is it because it's such a defiant act? Do people who identify with him get a revolutionary thrill out of it?
Lying so flagrantly represents a gigantic "up yours" to everyone but the people who identify with him. If you think you're on Trump's team, though, his ability--his eagerness--to lie in ways normal people would never lie must be part of the attraction.
