If you want to understand the current state of the American presidency, do not look to the Situation Room, the diplomatic cables, or the halls of Congress. Look instead to the shallow, chemical-laden, algae-choked waters of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
In a capital city facing no shortage of pressing domestic and international crises, the 47th President of the United States has spent the better part of the last month consumed by an increasingly madcap obsession with a landscaping project gone horribly wrong. It is a spectacle that perfectly encapsulates the current administration's approach to governance: a relentless fixation on superficial aesthetics, a total inability to accept responsibility for a botched job, and a willingness to weaponize the federal government against imaginary enemies to save face.
