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Opinion | Pay no attention to the clown, please

Josh Moon



The President of the United States is a clown. 

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know we’re supposed to have respect for the office and all that — and honestly, I do — but we’ve reached the point that not calling a clown a clown is doing a disservice to the country, the people and the office of the president. 

Because people, rightfully, tend to take the U.S. president seriously. 

And that shouldn’t happen anymore. Not for at least another year and a few months. 

Because the guy currently holding that office, Donald Trump, is a clown. 

For the few people who weren’t aware of this before, the events of last week — which were capped off by a public spat between Trump and weathermen — should have left no doubt. 

How bad was it? 


So bad that even people in Trump-lovin’ Alabama were left in a state of confusion and doubt, being forced to choose between the guy who has made all of their current day racist fantasies come true and the guy who tells them to get out of their trailer when the tornado’s coming. 


Yes, Trump went and did it. He picked a fight — albeit indirectly — with one of the two people in Alabama more beloved than him. 

Meteorologist James Spann. 

After Nick Saban, there is no one man more recognizable or revered in this state than everyone’s favorite suspenders-wearin’, climate change-denyin’ weathman. And when Trump forced the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to issue a statement late last week that put blame on the Birmingham National Weather Service office, the Orange One picked a fight with Spann. 

Within a few minutes of the press release from NOAA, Spann was on his very popular Twitter account taking issue. And basically said that if people were coming after the NWS, they were coming after him too. 

He then asked: “How in the world did it come to this?”

The answer to that, of course, is that people elected a clown to be president. Because of emails and racism and greed. 

And a little more than a week ago, that clown tweeted that Hurricane Dorian was threatening several Atlantic coast states and Alabama. The inclusion of Alabama was quite a shock to people who own maps and have access to the Weather Channel. 

And it was particularly surprising to meteorologists, especially those in Alabama. 

Because at that time, every single forecast model showed Dorian taking a turn, grazing Florida, and heading on up the coast, possibly making landfall in South Carolina or North Carolina. Which is precisely what happened, because those people know what the hell they’re talking about. 

Now, in the grand scheme of Trump screwups, this one was very, very low. Almost not even worth mentioning. But several people had to mention it, because it was their jobs to let the people of Alabama know that there was no danger from Dorian. 

Spann was one of them. Numerous other meteorologists and media folks did the same. 

Now, a normal person would have just deleted the tweet, maybe issued a brief apology, maybe attempted to explain that his confusion stemmed from earlier forecast maps including Alabama as a potential area under threat. 

But a clown most definitely would not do that. 

Instead, President Clown doubled, tripled, quadrupled and ultimately octupled down on his initial mistake. By the time it was over, he was holding a posterboard with a Dorian forecast map that he had altered with a Sharpie to include Alabama. 

And everyone was like, Whoa, the president is way nuts, man. 

Except for the people at Fox News, who totally understand him, because they’re the network of clowns and for clowns, and they’ve been going full clown for a long time now. So this was all cool with them — a president drawing his own forecast map and being totally unhinged because some people rightly pointed out that he made a simple mistake. 

So, that’s where we are as a country now. 

The president is so bat-guano insane that he’s bending facts and science too much for the climate change deniers. 

And the only real solution to this, for now, is to just let everyone know that our system made a big mistake and we’re going to need a few more months to get this sorted out and corrected. 

Until then, pay no attention to the clown or his enablers.






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