It's this kind of stuff - today's edition

I know that the post right below this one is about how utterly disgusting it was for Veronica Escobar and Beto O'Rourke to make a public spectacle out of proclaiming that Trump should stay away from El Paso, but, man, does the Very Stable Genius make it hard to cut him some slack.

It would have been so fine to hear that he had behaved in a manner other than this, but that would have been so out of character as to not be likely, wouldn't it?

During a visit to the El Paso hospital treating victims of Saturday's mass shooting, President Donald Trump praised medical staff for their response to the shooting and said "they're talking about you all over the world."

And then, he pivoted to talking about himself, talking up the crowd size that attended a rally he held in El Paso several months earlier and mocking the relatively small size of the crowd that joined presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke, a former congressman, to protest the rally, according to cell phone video posted online.

"I was here three months ago," Trump is seen telling a group of what appear to be first responders and other officials at University Medical Center in the video.

"That place was packed. ... That was some crowd. And we had twice the number outside. And then you had this crazy Beto. Beto had like 400 people in a parking lot, they said his crowd was wonderful," he said.

And then there's the propaganda video he made from it.

Bad optics on steroids.

Look, I've had it with saying other than what I really think about this guy. I'm no more impressed than I was when he was toying with us all, prattling on about considering a run, but saying his businesses were doing so fantastically well that maybe he'd stick with that. But then again, he might do the nation a favor, and give it the blessing of his singular ability to Make America Great Again.

The good policy moves - judicial appointments, deregulation, moving the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem - happened due to the good fortune of some sane and sober people having his ear. I figured from the moment he made his run official that that would be the one redeeming factor. Even there, though, they come and go a lot. There's generally some humiliation involved along the way.

And some of the pet issues that fired up his base are probably out of his reach now. I can't see him having an effective role in anything that moves the needle on immigration, for instance. Whether fairly or not, he's tainted by some spewings from that reckless mouth of his.

No, on this blog and in my podcast, I'm only going to stand for ideas and principles. I have no brand I'm defending, certainly not the Squirrel Hair brand.

Everybody recognizes it now. The shills whose careers are at stake come across as pretty flimsy these days.

If - holy mother of God, may this not be the case - he is the only alternative to whatever the Democrats offer, the LITD position will be this: Whatever is going to further the application of the three pillars of conservatism in the nation's life.

That's it.