Even if we give him the benefit of the doubt and chalk it up to tone-deafness, that's not much; he's tone-deaf more than he's not

So the Very Stable Genius has removed the tweet including a video of supporters at The Villages, in which one guy in a golf cart sporting a MAGA hat is chanting, "White power!"

The damage is done. South Carolina Senator Tim Scott was forthright about its reprehensibility. John Bolton said that either possibility - that it was a deliberate tee-hee or that, so taken in was he by the overall adulation from the Villages crowd, he was oblivious to the chanting guy - is plausible. DNC chair Tom Perez wasted no time having a field day with it.

Not a good way to kick off a week that follows a really bad week, especially since the other big story today is everybody's effort to get to the bottom of the Russian-bounty-to-Taliban-fighters story. The VSG's claim that there's absolutely nothing to it rings a little hollow, given that it's been picked up by outlets considerably beyond the New York Times now.

If he's got some 5-D chess up his sleeve, he'd better be playing it.