The Reflecting Pool opened on the National Mall in 1922, linking the monuments that honor Abraham Lincoln and George Washington. The pool serves as “an optical instrument,” writes one commentator, a mirror designed to edify those edifices and the virtues they embody.

Today the pool is still a mirror, reflecting the nature of a third president: Donald Trump. Instead of illustrating his grandeur, however, it reveals his grandiosity; his shoddy, slapdash approach to the office; his refusal to recognize reality and accept the consequences of his own actions.

This spring, Trump ordered a quick and quixotic renovation of the pool in time for his self-centered July 4 celebrations. The “American flag blue” lining he chose soon started to crack and peel, and in an embarrassed rage, he denounced the “great damage due to the Vandals and Radical Left SCUM that hate our Country.”

His hand-picked U.S. Attorney, Jeanine Pirro, dutifully indicted four supposed “vandals,” one on felony charges. But Trump was lying. And when Pirro looked more carefully, she realized the president’s pet contractor was the culprit. So, she dropped the charges and admitted “the damage was the result of a........

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