🐸"Swamp-Watergate.” Edition
America’s newest crime wave has arrived. Not murder. Not car theft. Not corruption. According to President Trump, the nation’s greatest threat is a gang of Antifa-hardened criminals attacking a $14 million reflecting pool.
The alleged crime spree began shortly after Trump’s hastily completed “American Flag Blue” renovation turned green with algae, started shedding paint, and became one of the most expensive pond-maintenance projects in American history. Rather than blaming the rushed construction, the no-bid contracts, the peeling liner, or the laws of biology, Trump has identified the true culprit: vandals armed with knives who apparently launched a coordinated assault on a decorative body of water.
The response has been appropriately proportional. National Guard troops, police, surveillance trailers, federal citations, threats of felony charges, and warnings of up to ten years in prison. One former Olympic canoeist was reportedly arrested after touching a loose flap of material floating in the pool. Future generations will study this dangerous criminal enterprise, that will inevitably be labeled by historians as “Swamp-Watergate.”
The plot grows more diabolical by the day. The mysterious cut in the liner reportedly expanded from 250 feet to 300 feet to 350 feet. At this rate, by Independence Day investigators may discover that saboteurs carved a trench all the way to the Atlantic Ocean. Photographic evidence is promised. Eventually. At the right time. Much like the promise of an algae-free reflecting pool.
The whole episode has the feel of a political parody written by someone who was told to make it less believable. A rushed renovation develops predictable problems. The problems become visible to everyone. Officials deny the problems. Then the problems become impossible to deny. Finally, the problems are reclassified as crimes committed by shadowy enemies of patriotic infrastructure.
At this point, the Reflecting Pool is no longer a monument. It is a criminal conspiracy, a national security threat, a law-enforcement operation, an algae research facility, and a cautionary tale about what happens when political vanity collides with pond maintenance. The only thing it no longer seems capable of doing is reflecting.
Nick Anderson - Tribune Content Agency and Substack
Bill Bramhall - Tribune Content Agency
Drew Sheneman - Substack and Tribune Content Agency
Pedro Molina - Tinyview and Tribune Content Agency
Rob Rogers - Tinyview Comics and Andrews McMeel
Clay Bennett - Tribune Content Agency
Jimmy Margulies - King Features
Robert Ariail - Andrews McMeel
Lalo Alcaraz - Andrews McMeel
The Reflecting Pool is the perfect reflection of the stupidity, overinflated egotism, and selfish arrogance fouling our country. Each and every comment and artist has encapsulated things perfectly this morning.
Au contraire. It does reflect powerfully. It does not mirror the Washington Monument or the Lincoln Memorial, but it is a near perfect reflection of the incompetence, ignorance, extravagance, waste, and narcissism of this bumbler in chief. How ironic that this narcissist can't see his own bloated reflection in the pool despite its reflection of his maladministration.