{"id":1927,"date":"2026-06-20T21:21:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-20T21:21:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zeppscommentaries.online\/?p=1927"},"modified":"2026-06-20T21:21:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-20T21:21:10","slug":"in-hot-water-the-pool-reflects-trumps-woes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zeppscommentaries.online\/?p=1927","title":{"rendered":"In Hot Water — The Pool Reflects Trump\u2019s Woes"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Hot Water<\/b><\/p>\n

The Pool Reflects Trump\u2019s Woes<\/b><\/p>\n

Bryan Zepp Jamieson<\/i><\/p>\n

June 20th<\/sup>, 2026<\/i><\/p>\n

For some reason, an old golden-age science fiction story has been going through my mind this week as I watch the antics of the rapidly-disintegrating Donald Trump. The 1941 story was called \u201cBullard Reflects<\/a>\u201d by Malcolm Jameson. It\u2019s available free to read at the link, and is worth it simply because it has one of the greatest closing lines of all time. Jameson\u2019s story also played a significant role in naval strategic operations going forward.<\/p>\n

Now, Bullard\u2019s antagonist was \u201cEgon Ziffler, chief of secret police of the Jovian Empire\u2014the Torturer.\u201d Egon was vicious, vainglorious, with a wildly inflated sense of self-worth and utterly abysmal strategic or tactical skills. So, OK, there\u2019s a lot there to remind me of Trump. But I think it\u2019s because of the use of the word \u201creflect\u201d in the story that brought it to mind.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a weird situation in pretty much any context, but the fact is that Trump has probably taken more political damage from a vanity project to pretty up a Washington landmark then he has from his catastrophic defeat in his ill-considered foray against Iran. It takes real talent to put a minor refurb project ahead of America\u2019s greatest military and diplomatic defeat in the eyes of the public, but Trump managed.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m talking, of course, about the Reflecting Pool. I\u2019ve already had a couple of Trump supporters complain that \u201cliberals never gave the Reflecting Pool a second thought until they saw an opportunity to embarrass Trump.\u201d There\u2019s a certain amount of truth there: most people, including most liberals, just sort of thought of the Pool as one of those pretty sites that was part of DC\u2019s character and that was about it. It was more a matter of good taste and ambiance rather then the sort of deep significance of the Lincoln Memorial or the Vietnam Wall. So no, I never gave it much thought beyond, \u201cOh, that\u2019s pretty.\u201d I doubt most other people did, either.<\/p>\n

Until Trump, as part of his monomaniacal and egotistical drive to reshape DC in his image, declared the Pool a disgrace and blamed its allegedly deplorable condition on Obama and Biden and any other Democrat nearby. As with his other \u2018renovations\u2019, he moved unilaterally, without regard to whether he had authority, funding, or if the property was his to reshape. Other presidents, following set procedures, have made similar changes, and nobody ever heard of them. But this is Trump, and the public, already deeply outraged by his destruction of the East Wing and the Kennedy Center, were, at best, deeply skeptical. Experts weighed in, noting that granite couldn\u2019t hold paint well and noting that making the shallow Pool darker under that Washington sun would make the water much warmer.<\/p>\n

The rest you know about. The algae exploded, and in an effort to contain it, they dumped in hundreds of gallons of hydrogen peroxide. It killed the algae, but, as Matt Viser<\/a> at the Atlantic explained, it was replaced by \u201cScenedesmus<\/em>, a genus of green algae nicknamed \u2018Skinny Dead Mouse\u2019 by scientists.\u201d It\u2019s much harder to kill. Even worse, the lining of the Pool laid out by the contractor, the aptly-named \u201cGreenwater, Inc.\u201d began to disintegrate and bob to the surface. The lining was the same stuff used in truckbeds, and usually works pretty well, assuming it\u2019s given time to cure, isn\u2019t under water, and isn\u2019t exposed to hydrogen peroxide.<\/p>\n

So another Trump-created crisis has turned into an utter fiasco. At last word he had stationed National Guard troops around the Pool to prevent souvenir takers from making off with the erstwhile Pool bed while his flying monkeys swamp the social media with screams that Democrats somehow sabotaged the project. This is farce of the purest ray divine.<\/p>\n

A court blocked him from closing the Kennedy Center for two years for \u2018renovations\u2019–a move on his part to hide the utter fiasco of his renaming the center and alienating all of the world\u2019s higher art community. The running joke was that he only had the option of 900 consecutive nights of some country and western twat yodeling \u201cProud to be an American\u201d in lieu of all the other performances. He had to hide the utter failure. While the court was at it, they ordered his name removed from the center. He had that done, behind a tarp so the public couldn\u2019t see, a calculated three hours after the court deadline. The tarp is still in place, which is having the opposite effect of what Trump hoped for by paradoxically keeping it in the public eye. There\u2019s already rumors he didn\u2019t really remove his name. Eventually someone will paint \u201c8647\u201d on the tarp and he\u2019ll have to replace it and station more troops to guard it.<\/p>\n

Then there was the G7 conference. It was an even bigger fiasco than the Reflecting Pool, and while the stakes are far higher, the nuances were less obvious. Hell, the Pool may have distracted the public enough to spare Trump a greater humiliation.<\/p>\n

First, he tried, on camera, to kiss French First Lady Brigitt Macron. He looked for all the world like Uncle Pervy trying to lay a big wet on on an obviously flustered and unwilling twelve-year-old niece. But French President Emmanuel Macron already had the last laugh, arranging for the historically illiterate US leader to sign his agreement with Iran at Versailles, a place that enjoys a certain infamy when it comes to bad treaties and French vengeance.<\/p>\n

In another extraordinary diplomatic gaffe, he claimed that Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, the closest thing to an ideological ally he had in the G7, \u2018begged\u2019 him to have her picture taken with him. Understandably infuriated, Meloni called the Trump claim \u2018fabricated\u2019 and wrote, “As for my popularity, being your friend has certainly not helped it, nor does it depend on my relationship with you. My popularity depends on my ability to defend Italy’s national interest, and that is exactly what I have always done.” Trump, ever the fool, reiterated that she begged him, \u2018over and over.\u2019 The US just lost one of its few remaining friends.<\/p>\n

Did I mention Trump called Netanyahu a \u2018motherfucker\u2019? Yup. One of the few things he got right this week, but not particularly helpful.<\/p>\n

Another image caught a seemingly oblivious Trump standing in the midst of other world leaders who were affably greeting and meeting, as isolated and spurned as the proverbial turd in the swimming pool.<\/p>\n

And back to the Pool: It just came out that Olympian David Hearn was just arrested. He stopped by the Pool to see for himself, and apparently reached in and felt a chuck of the lining fragment. He then released it, stood up, and walked back to his bicycle. Park Police promptly arrested him for \u201cdestruction of government property\u201d! You can\u2019t make this up!<\/p>\n

Trump apparently never heard the Charlie Chaplin quote, “The tyrant fears the laugh more than the assassin’s bullet.” But he does have some dim, rat-like awareness that looking like a fool is very dangerous for him. And in increasingly frantic efforts to counteract that, he acts like a greater fool with every passing day. And the laughter grows.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Hot Water The Pool Reflects Trump\u2019s Woes Bryan Zepp Jamieson June 20th, 2026 For some reason, an old golden-age science fiction story has been going through my mind this week as I watch the antics of the rapidly-disintegrating Donald Trump. The 1941 story was called \u201cBullard Reflects\u201d by Malcolm Jameson. It\u2019s available free to … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “In Hot Water — The Pool Reflects Trump\u2019s Woes”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,602,2330,5,617,2,3,2165],"tags":[2522,1047,2524,2528,2526,2517,197,2513,2523,2525,2519,2520,240,2521,2512,2518,348,2527,2514,2515,2516,126],"class_list":["post-1927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-american-psyche","category-civil-war","category-corruption","category-foreign-affairs","category-history","category-humor","category-personalmisc","category-trump-second-term","tag-14point-agreement","tag-atlantic","tag-brigitt-macron","tag-bullard-reflects","tag-david-hearn","tag-dc","tag-donald-trump","tag-egon-ziffler","tag-g7","tag-giorgia-meloni","tag-greenwatr","tag-inc","tag-iran","tag-kennedy-center","tag-malcolm-jameson","tag-matt-viser","tag-netanyahu","tag-park-police","tag-reflecting-pool","tag-renovations","tag-unilateral","tag-washington"],"yoast_head":"\nIn Hot Water -- The Pool Reflects Trump\u2019s Woes · Zepp's Commentaries<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/zeppscommentaries.online\/?p=1927\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"In Hot Water -- The Pool Reflects Trump\u2019s Woes · Zepp's Commentaries\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In Hot Water The Pool Reflects Trump\u2019s Woes Bryan Zepp Jamieson June 20th, 2026 For some reason, an old golden-age science fiction story has been going through my mind this week as I watch the antics of the rapidly-disintegrating Donald Trump. 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