Wy it was wrong for Pubs to nominate and elect DJT instead of an actual conservative - today's edition

So this morning's tweets from the - ahem - president about the MSNBC Morning Joe co-hosts are consuming the oxygen that should go for health care, tax reform, Syria and North Korea. It was signature Trump. Seventh-grade adjectives ("low IQ Crazy Mika," "psycho Joe"), a dubious anecdote from out of nowhere ("bleeding badly from a face lift"), portrayal of adversaries as idolizing him and wanting to bask in his presence ("came to Mar-a-Lago 3 nights in a row . . . and insisted on joining me"), and portrayal of a media outlet as having dismal prospects ("poorly rated Morning Joe"). It's not a very long pair of blurting, but he packs it all in.

And again, all parties, in Pavlovian fashion, are responding as they are conditioned to. The White House press shop, in the person of Sarah Huckabee, talks about hitting back twice as hard. Rush Limbaugh make it all about the reaction of the left-leaning media, when there are plenty of outraged conservatives (Ben Sasse, Jay Caruso, Peter Heck, Ben Shapiro, David French). The comment-thread slavish devotees set up the straw-man argument that a less infantile style of engaging hostile forces did nothing to help previous Republican leaders quash said forces. Laura Ingraham exhorting the White House to exert more "message discipline." (When is she going to grow weary to the breaking point of putting herself in the position of ranting about what the Trump team ought to be doing?) And, of course, a leftism-drenched "mainstream media" having a field day with it, particularly given the cover it provides in the wake of some recent self-immolation.

Damn it, this is exactly what the "Against Trump" issue of National Review was all about. This is what Charlie Sykes's mighty swim against the talk-radio tide was all about. It's what the last-minute implorings here at LITD were all about.

And it's exactly what those figures who chose for all intents and purposes immediately upon DJT's descent of the Trump Tower escalator to become his full-throated zealots and and render their previous conservative bona fides counterfeit are responsible for imposing on us. They willfully glossed over the implications of his lack of character and maturity, setting up a false dichotomy between the Clinton and Bush dynasties, even as the Republican field brimmed with an abundance of brilliance, maturity and principle.

The left-leaning media is held in low regard by most of the American public, but it's so ubiquitous that its conflation of this garbage with the good moves by this administration makes its way into the recesses of the public consciousness.

Donald Trump has not made it easier to advance conservative policy. He's made it infuriatingly harder.