[NOTE: This post has been slightly revised]
“The Five Stages of Trump Grief,” by Alexandra Petri, who writes the Washington Post‘s ComPost blog (“a lighter take on the news and opinions of the day”), would be funny if it were good-naturedly mocking those like our best friend in Charlottesville (formerly best friend?) who refused a dinner invitation Monday night (Trump victory + 6 days) with a short text: “Devastated by the election. Not up for socializing.”
Alas, the piece reads more like description than parody. There are, however, occasional sparks of real humor. For example, after the obligatory observation that Trump gave “strength and support to all kinds of hate” and “doesn’t think women are people,” Petri cracks that Trump also “has lowered the level of transparency” expected of presidential candidates. This was obviously an attempt at humor (wasn’t it?), since after all it was the other candidate who chose to conduct her business as Secretary of State shielded from public view, make her records immune to the pesky Freedom of Information Act, assume personal ownership and control of millions of public documents — some of which no doubt containing evidence of playing footsie with her family foundation — and then wantonly destroy millions of them, the Federal Records Act notwithstanding.
As I said, there was some humor in the piece.
But perhaps I am being unfair. Hillary’s official communications were, after all, transparent to many observers — all those who managed to gain access to her “private” server, something she initially claimed was impossible because “it had numerous safeguards. It was on property guarded by the Secret Service.”
Now, that was Hill-arious.
