In what appears to have been a classic midsummer Friday-night news dump, the Trump administration acknowledged that the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool’s peeling bottom was caused by a “botched” renovation — not America-hating vandals and a 67-year-old former Olympic canoeist.

After the peeling of the reflecting pool’s American Flag Blue coating was first spotted, President Trump and administration officials repeatedly blamed the peeling (and post-renovation algae blooms) on devious troublemakers, going as far as suggesting malcontents armed with box cutters had slashed hundred-yard gashes in the coating. They even set up a mini police state around........

© Daily Intelligencer