O Say Can You Please Entry 11

O Say Can You Please Entry 11: Mark This One Down*

*Totally not dedicated in memory of Robert Mugabe (February 21, 1924- September 6, 2019), former dictator of Zimbabwe from 1980 to 2017.

    Mocking President Trump isn’t as easy as walking and chewing gum; it’s as easy as either walking or chewing gum. The point is that this man is not really all there, and his outright refusal to admit his many mistakes only adds fuel to that fire. The most recent of his long series of blunders that would humiliate anyone else involves an outdated weather map, a lie, and a permanent marker. That’s right, Sharpiegate’s a thing now, and this could become one of the few Presidential embarrassments that actually might cause problems for Trump. This story is a marker stain on the already filthy hand of our Commander-in-Chief, and it won’t wash off anytime soon.

    However, before we get to the loony parts of this situation, some context is needed. The weather map I mentioned earlier was a National Hurricane Center map of the forecast cone for a devastating hurricane by the name of Dorian. However, someone in his administration decided it would be a good idea to alter that map to cover up yet another blatant lie (this one being that Dorian was going to hit Alabama) by his or her boss. Here’s the map with the alterations that’s about to get picked apart.

Source: Chip Somodevilla/Getty

    The first thing I noticed about the weather map is that the doctoring is done terribly. For one, the actual edges of the area near the alterations are outlined in white, unlike the black Sharpie mark. Also, the two lines don’t even intersect neatly, with intruding corners at their intersections. Those are all the problems with the line itself, but there are other issues, too.

    This next issue is the date on the map compared to the day Trump presented it. You see, this map has some not-so-fine print on the bottom, and one of those things that said print would tell you is the date and time that the map is for. Unfortunately, the Trump administration did not get that memo, and used a map dated August 29th and presented it as still current on September 4th. That’s a difference of six whole days, during which time Dorian moved from the waters north of Puerto Rico before devastating the Bahamas, and then moved up the east coast of Florida. Alabama borders the west coast of Florida and not the east, so by the time the presentation occurred, Trump’s claim became inaccurate and outdated.

    However, the worst part about this fiasco is that he saw it to be necessary to defend his untrained meteorological eye six days after he predicted that Alabama would get hit by a hurricane forecasted to hit eastern Florida instead. If our President had either not altered the map, stuck to warning areas near the forecast cone, or even admitted that his prediction was wrong, this entry would not have been written. This would have been just another tweet from a man who feeds off them, and the world would have never had this to laugh at America for (God knows how many other things they can crack up over right now). All in all, if Trump didn’t feel the need to defend an outdated claim, this fiasco would never have become such. This story is easily the stupidest thing I’ve had to cover on this blog, and I hope to God this particular kind of incident doesn’t end up all over the news again, distracting us from disasters at home and abroad. The best memes on the matter can be found on Twitter with #sharpiegate as well as the Business Insider article I linked to earlier. Thank you, and have a great day!