Chronicling Donald Trump’s many flaws—as a man, as a husband/father/politician/businessman/actor/pizza hawker—has kept many of us (un)happily distracted for the past eight hundred or so days.

As bountiful as that flaws list is, credit where credit is due: the man is an exceptional media manipulator. I draw no pleasure in complimenting him, but watching Trump lie and misdirect and conjure evermore distractions to whiplash media attention from one calamity to the next is something he’s disproportionately gifted at. Americans were pitched a showman, they voted in a showman, and surprise surprise, a showman now binges on cable news in the Oval Office.