[continued from previous message]   
      
   the Democrats are so unpopular these days. He was even OK when I checked   
   him on the orangutan lawsuit. He was. I know.   
      
   He said to Dana White, you know, ‘Bill said my father was an orangutan,   
   and I said, I really love my father.’ And I said, ‘Well, Mr. President,   
   I did that because I didn't like what you were doing regarding Obama's   
   birth origins. I thought that was low.’ Again, no anger, just a little   
   smile, as if to say, yeah, I get it.   
      
   The most surreal part of the whole night was when I got home. I flew   
   back right after the dinner, and I'm in bed watching ’60 Minutes’ from   
   the night before. And there's Trump in one of their stories, standing at   
   a podium in a room that looked to me like one of the rooms and places   
   we'd just been in. And he's ranting, ‘Disgusting, you're a terrible   
   person.’ And I'm like, who's that guy? What happened to Glinda the Good   
   Witch? And why can't we get the guy I met to be the public guy?   
      
   And I'm not saying it's our responsibility to do that. It's not. I'm   
   just reporting exactly what I saw over two and a half hours. I went into   
   the mine, and that's what's down there. A crazy person doesn't live in   
   the White House. A person who plays a crazy person on TV a lot lives   
   there, which I know is (expletive) up. It's just not as (expletive) up   
   as I thought it was. And I have no illusions now that I'm back to work   
   at my job that he might start a new list.   
      
   Because I don't have a good feeling and will be critical about a lot of   
   what he's doing: the trade war and disappearing people, ruling by   
   decree, threatening judges, gutting the government with glee. But I also   
   think he now understands I have a job to do, or at least he did on this   
   night because he said to me early on that he'd seen our last episode,   
   which was the Friday before this dinner And he said, ‘I thought maybe   
   you'd be nice, but you'd hit me really hard.’ I did, because I'm not   
   going to pull my punches that presidents get to propose a third term for   
   themselves. He understood that, and without animus. That doesn't mean   
   he's not going try to do it.   
      
   At one point I said to him, ‘You're scaring people. Do you really want   
   to be scaring your own citizens so much?’ And I know now you're all   
   saying, and what did he say to that? Honestly, I don't remember. But it   
   wasn't ‘OK, I'll stop.’   
      
   So MAGA fans, don't worry, your boy gave me nothing. Just hats. Hats and   
   a very generous amount of time and a willingness to listen and accept me   
   as a possible friend, even though I'm not MAGA, which was the point of   
   the dinner. My favorite part of the whole night was we were standing in   
   the (room off the Oval Office) and he said, ‘You know I've heard from a   
   lot of people who really like that we're having this dinner. Not all,   
   but a lot.’ And I said, ‘Same, a lot of people told me they loved it,   
   but not all.’   
      
   And we agreed the people who don't even want us to talk? We don't like   
   you. Don't talk as opposed to what? Writing the same editorial for the   
   millionth time and making 25-hour speeches into the wind. Really, that's   
   what liberals have? He takes the piss out of everybody else, and we can   
   hold ours?   
      
   OK, that's my report. You can hate me for it, but I'm not a liar. Trump   
   was gracious and measured, and why he isn't that in other settings, I   
   don't know. And I can't answer, and it's not my place to answer. I'm   
   just telling you what I saw, and I wasn't high.   
      
   Damn, missed opportunity.   
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)