March 28, 2018 // circa 2006

In the words of the Classics IV, "Oh Stormy, bring back that sunny day."
We're going way back for the origins on this one.  Or just a few years, if you're following the money.  Either way, we're all outraged about it. 

"Need a ride?"

​Let’s start with this: an apology. We’re sorry we’ve been away so long but there were many nights where we wondered: Can we just repost the same ideas from one year ago? Feels like we're outraged about exactly the same things that riled us up in 2017. But we resisted, and then life interfered a great deal that resulted in us going dark for a while, but now we’re back. So again, apologies.

Just in time to take trip back to our childhood, and fables.  Remember this one?
 
 The Scorpion and the Frog
 
  A scorpion and a frog meet on the bank of a stream and the
scorpion asks the frog to carry him across on its back. The
frog asks, "How do I know you won't sting me?" The scorpion
says, "Because if I do, I will die too."
 
  The frog is satisfied, and they set out, but in midstream,
the scorpion stings the frog. The frog feels the onset of
paralysis and starts to sink, knowing they both will drown,
but has just enough time to gasp "Why?"
 
               Replies the scorpion: "Its my nature..."
 
Let’s remember that story and move on.
 
Several weeks ago, we all met a woman called Stormy Daniels (named Stephanie Clifford). Since then, we’ve heard many more details about her personal life and connections to President Donald Trump, his candidacy, his attorney, an alleged payoff, an alleged threat, and one particular magazine not one person would ever want to borrow again. In other words, more than anyone ever hoped to hear.  
 
Inexplicably, CNN host Anderson Cooper tried to glean even more from her when they spoke  under the “60 Minutes” banner and came away mostly empty.  (It’s ineffably sad that this story earned the highest ratings for 60 Minutes in ten years.  We ARE that vacant.  We are and we should own that.) Suffice it to say, like many, we left that interview with our theory and understanding of the English language intact: Spending the night with a married man does not an affair make.
 
Is the story more about illegality in terms of “contributions,” payoffs and non-disclosure agreements? Possibly. Maybe even probably. The “affair” thing didn’t really play well for her. We’ll find out.  And it could get very, very ugly.  Or it could go away. Like so many who burst into the collective consciousness, Stormy Steph’s fifteen minutes are fleeting….
 
When expressing our overall dismay with this whole tawdry story, we’ve faced the inevitable chorus of “He’s so disgusting.  Can you even imagine a story like this about Barack Obama?” Predictable and tiresome response.
 
And we’re back ... to the frog and the scorpion. Not one of us can fathom this story featuring a President Obama and a porn actress/stripper because it’s not in his “character,” at least as far as we can tell from his more than twelve years in the international public eye. If a story like this ever became public about the Obamas, we’d feel horrified, betrayed and blindsided.  He’s not a scorpion. It doesn’t seem to be in his nature.
 
On the other hand, we have the President. Let’s recap a little bit of what we know about him and his experiences with women. After many years of marriage and three children, he cheated on his first wife. His affair with Marla Maples led to his divorce, his daughter Tiffany, and his second marriage (in that order, we believe.) He divorced his second wife after three years of marriage, and as some newspapers have claimed, her adultery. He began dating Melania Knauss in 1998; they married in 2005, and had a son in 2007.  According to Stephanie/Stormy, President Trump and she had an affair/AKA one night stand in 2006.  Is that enough background for you? Nothing he does should shock or sadden us.  He is – in a word – a scorpion.  Behavior like this appears to be in his nature.
 
Not once did the President ever present himself as anything but himself to the American people. And despite every bit of it – every tweet, every revelation, every sound bite, every gesture, every insult – he was elected President of the United States. Before or since the election, not one word from any woman anywhere about his behavior strains credibility but it ddidn’t matter then and it doesn’t matter now. He was elected and is the President. He admitted his own proclivities, beliefs and habits – happily without apology – for years (just listen to those old Stern shows) and despite every bit of it, he’s in the Oval.
 
And what of Melania?  This immigrant, multi-lingual model made her living from her stunning good looks for years. Yes, she posed nude (provocatively, with another woman) and modeled chain link bathing suits but none of that is against the law and obviously not one bit of it precluded her from becoming the First Lady. But whatever else she chose to do in her life, she also chose to marry a cheater. She knew it and she did it anyway. We’ll never understand that kind of logic but we’re not her.
 
Like most of you, we're not surprised by this but we are weary of it. The President’s affairs are immaterial to us, other than they prove how little he seems to respect his wife and women in general. But just as it’s lovely and magical to think that our presidents – while being the most powerful individuals on the planet – are also great dads, supportive husbands, loyal sons, steadfast brothers, kind uncles and true friends (and yes, they’ve all been men so far), some of them haven’t been and some of them won’t be in the years to come. And yes, if we believe the picture we get from StormySteph is accurate, and illustrates the true “nature” of President Trump, he is not the leader we’d prefer to see represent us to the world, just one of the reasons we didn’t vote for him.
 
As is the case with so much of what we deconstruct on Two Weeks Ago News, what a profound waste of time it is to cover this non-story. It’s more than old news. It was old news twenty-plus years ago when he cheated on Ivana and the New York tabloids minted money while covering his divorces and affairs.
 
Next.  Something will come up - it always does - and he's no doubt poised and ready to carry that next frog across the stream.

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