It’s summertime, and the living is uneasy, particularly in Washington newsrooms and bureaus. At this time of year, historically, serious news can be harder to find than the newspeople available to cover it.

The result is what journalists call “the silly season,” when you can never guess what pseudo-story will get elevated to the headlines.

Searching for silly news in seriously serious Washington can be easier than you might think, and of late it is becoming difficult to draw the line between the consequential and the absurd.

Consider the kerfuffle raised around a remark by U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, a Georgia Democrat often mentioned among presidential hopefuls, about President Donald Trump and a young female aide.

Ossoff angered Team Trump — and Trump himself — by calling suggestive attention to the relationship widely described as exceptionally close between the president and Natalie Harp, his 35-year-old executive assistant.

“He doesn’t want to do the job,” Ossoff declared to an enthusiastic crowd, regarding Trump’s air of befuddlement amid a swirl of crises bedeviling his administration. “He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the emir of Qatar.”

“With Natalie.” Those two words ignited the crowd and delighted down-in-the-dumps Democrats elsewhere who, in this polarized election season, are looking exceptionally hard for candidates who show backbone.

And they were not alone. A brief soundbite from Ossoff’s 30-minute speech drew........

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