The problem is more obvious than half a leech on the sneeze guard of a salad bar: we’re paying much too much attention. Our national obsession with new news concerning the man blundering about the Oval Office has obscured any overview at all. He has the unique ability to blot out the big picture. Especially when standing sideways.

Every time we think we’ve hit rock bottom, another subbasement gets dug, hidden in a cloud of smoke and mirrors. Donald Trump hasn’t just lowered the bar – he’s buried it so deep you couldn’t come close with a hydraulic excavator equipped with space-age sonar.

We still pour over his tweets like anthropologists dusting the bones of a calcified civilization, but the outrage is wearing off. After decades of press pimping and 17 months of campaigning and two years into his reign of error, the world is becoming numb to the president’s dumpy trumpy trampy shenanigans.

It becomes routine. Every day, the White House is discovered to be involved in some dastardly situation. Either there’s proof they did something they swore up and down they didn’t do, or they get caught in an astonishing lie. Or somebody says something out loud that would have sunk a previous Administration so deep in a swamp of disgust they’d be found floating upside down like tropical fish after a week of not being fed.

It’s a dance, and all the players know their part. The Smoky Hokey Pokey. We got ourselves a bad case of the deja voodoos.

First comes the shocking revelation. The hasty denials soon follow.

The New York Times trots out evidence that not only did this happen, but even more egregious stuff went down as well.

The official White House response – courtesy of Sarah Huckabee Sanders – is that it never happened, and even if it did, Barack Obama did way worse.

Democrats argue amongst themselves over whether the latest disclosure is an impeachable offense- coming to no conclusion.

Mitch McConnell makes turtle noises.

Donald Trump says he doesn’t know the guy, can’t remember what happened, everyone besides him is lying and that the revelation bolsters his claim there was “no collusion.”

Some Republicans are outraged, then they aren’t, then support the president.

The Washington Post needs three pages to print a graph that documents this sort of thing happened 18 gazillion times before.

Fox News hosts call for more hearings on Benghazi.

Some pundit on MSNBC becomes so overwrought a blood vessel in his head bursts on air.

Donald Trump’s base laughs and laughs.

Rudy Giuliani says he doesn’t believe it happened, and if it did, Hillary Clinton would have done way worse. And she’s a woman.

Bernie Sanders supporters say this is further proof that Bernie would have won.

The National Enquirer prints a cover photo with Michelle Obama holding a bloody knife in front of what looks to be a pizza parlor.

Mike Pence says he doesn’t know anything.

Snow falls. Or it doesn’t.

And then, the very next day, it starts up all over again. This nation is stuck on a rollercoaster of spin with a minimum of two years before we can get off.

Strap on your seat belts extra tight, everybody. It’s going to be a bumpy rest of a first term. Pass the Dramamine please.

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Copyright 2019, Will Durst, distributed by the Cagle Cartoons Inc. syndicate.

Will Durst is an award-winning, nationally acclaimed columnist, comic and former sod farmer in New Berlin, Wisconsin. For a calendar of personal appearances, including his new one-man show, “Durst Case Scenario,” please visit willdurst.com.