MICKEY KAUS: Didn’t Obama just elevate Donald Trump? “Even if Obama was attempting the ‘genius’ Trump-pumping triple-bank-shot , that doesn’t mean it will work out as planned and help the president. It also looks–to the non-geniuses–like Obama waited two years to spring a trap on the birthers and then pissed it away trying to damage a marginal candidate, in a press appearance that made the president seem as much a righteous, lecturing whiner (‘I’ve got better stuff to do’) as a policy-driven grown up. Is Obama saying he wouldn’t be losing an unnecessary war in Libya if only he’d had more quiet time to think it through?”

Plus, from the comments: “Trump has shown the rest of the field how to annoy a narcissist into compliance.”

UPDATE: Prof. Stephen Clark writes: “Elevate Trump? Is that even possible? Trump is Trump and will always be exactly what he is ….Trump™. Kaus is usually perceptive: he doesn’t see this. No. Trump just conscripted Obama into his latest reality show. The only thing missing is the boardroom scene with the Donald summarily firing him.”