WELL, THAT’S THE TRUTH: Joy Behar: We jumped to conclusions about the Covington Catholic kids because we desperately want Trump out of office.

God love ‘er for betraying no shame in recognizing that the proposition that All MAGA Hat-Wearers Are Bad in this case seems to require the continued pummeling of a bunch of children. And I stress “continued.” I jumped to conclusions too when the first carefully edited clip of the confrontation emerged but it’s one thing to render judgment rashly and regret it and another to double and triple down after evidence to the contrary emerges, as some of the Lords of Tolerance have done over the past 48 hours. . . .

My thought last night was that the last thing this clusterfark needed was Trump weighing in. Every controversy he touches turns more bitter; God knows what he might say about it off the cuff to damage his own side; and it’s a bad look for him to be taking time out for something like this when the government’s shut down and federal workers are looking at another missed payday. The right has done quite well without him over the last few days prosecuting the case in the kids’ defense too, with help from Fox News. The more I think about it, though, the weirder it would be if he *didn’t* weigh in. This sort of cultural brawl is why he was elected, after all. Ann Coulter has convinced herself that it was because of the wall, but no, it’s because Trump is willing to grab the left in a headlock unapologetically whenever a nasty bar fight like this breaks out. Fans will forgive him sooner or later (spoiler: sooner) if he doesn’t get a wall but Trump refusing to throw a chair at SJWs trying to smear a bunch of kids for “the cause” really would be a “Why did we elect this guy?” moment.

Well, when you’re in a bar fight, it’s nice to have a guy at your side who realizes that you’re in a bar fight.

UPDATE: Related: