Donald Trump is not actually running for president: 

This year marks the fifth time since 1988 that Mr. Trump has suggested he would seek the White House, but he has never before formally launched a campaign. (In the past, his political dalliances have coincided with the launch of a new book or television show.)

Donald Trump is not actually running for president: 

The rambling, hour-long stream-of-consciousness speech was online catnip, from the soundtrack (pure schmaltz, featuring piece from the “Phantom of the Opera” and “Cats”) to the entrance, as Trump descended the escalator to the marble basement of the Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue with wife Melania, who was clad in stiletto heels and a strapless white dress.

Donald Trump is not actually running for president, even if he does run for president: 

It would be easy to dismiss Trump as a joke candidate, especially with his lack of a record running for office or a recognizable political campaign structure.

But J. Ann Selzer, who conducts the Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Iowa Poll and is president of Selzer & Company, noted that Trump’s name, fame and direct style will give him advantages, particularly in a crowded GOP field.

Though he is in the single digits in Iowa, Selzer noted that he could get traction and gain the few points needed to secure a position among the top candidates who will get in the debates.

To review: Donald Trump is a joke, and every previous encounter we’ve had with him proves that. He announced his campaign the way Lord Business announced Taco Tuesday, and though he has no support in any of the actual primary states, he could develop that support! If he wanted to! Sometime!

The man is a sideshow, everybody knows he’s a sideshow, almost everybody says he’s a sideshow, and yet … everybody says he’s a sideshow and HOLY SHIT LOOK AT THE SIDESHOW! It’s wall-to-wall sideshow, all day long on CNN and Fox and MSNBCMOUSE and supposedly reputable political journalists are falling all over themselves to both deplore the thing they are covering and to cover it.

Which, just knock it off. Just don’t cover something, if you don’t want to cover it. Is somebody holding a gun to your head? Is somebody saying cover this or the kitten gets it? Is somebody standing next to your fish tank with a Dustbuster ready to give Flipper the business? Because otherwise what the entirely natural tits is your excuse for covering something you are willing to admit to your audience you hate covering?

Just sack up and admit you LIKE the sideshow. That’s okay. Lots of people like things. I like eating an entire bag of chocolate-covered almonds and calling it dinner. But I’m not gonna then sit here and talk about how bad it makes me feel to do that and how I know I shouldn’t and I’m so, so awful hee hee giggle giggle. The chocolate covered almonds are tasty.

They’re just not nutritious and I don’t get to pretend they are.

A.