It Can't Always Go Up To 11

I'd say I was a bit guilty of screaming too loudly at every little thing the Bush administration did back in the day, but I did so because *nobody else was screaming*. Punditry generally was so on the side of defending George Bush that screaming a bit too loudly on this sucky blog was a abit of a counterweight. I don't mean I lied about my reactions. I mean, sure, maybe I overreacted sometimes, because quite often no one else was reacting. There was good journalism then - otherwise how would I know what to be mad about - but if you, for example, flipped on Hardball in 2005, it was Bush country and everybody loved him. We all remember the joke about how Bush critics were "shrill."

There isn't a shortage of Trump criticism now. In fact, as bad as Trump is, I'd say there's too much criticism. Not in the sense that I disagree with anyone arguing that he is America's Worst Human. He is. But not every single little thing that comes out of the Trump administration is worth turning the dial up to 11 for, even if a lot of it is.

The president of the United States boosting this diseased racist propaganda quite understandably taints everything else he says and does. However, even this galling behavior doesn't mean that President Trump's views are 100 percent bad all the time. Similarly, the enemy of your enemy is not necessarily your friend — and it's important not to side with bad actors just because they happen to fall afoul of the president's meandering, addle-brained resentments.

Case in point: the proposed merger between AT&T and Time Warner, which Trump's Department of Justice has filed a lawsuit to block.

I don't think Trump does anything for the right reasons. I don't think he even understands the reasons for anything he does, other than how it makes him feel deep inside his hollow soul. But occasionally he does something right for the wrong reasons, and blocking a giant merger - frankly, any giant merger - is in no way an assault on the free press even if Trump thinks it is. Pretty sure we'll still have Don Lemon to kick around if this doesn't go through.