It seems that the M&Ms (Mainstream Media) have finally picked up on something: the Orange One's pardons seem to be in direct contradiction of many of his stated goals and policies. For instance, attacking a country for being a source of drugs while pardoning a leader incarcerated for being a source of drugs. Doesn't seem to make sense, does it? Yet it does...

This is called "sending a signal." Yes, your life will be miserable for a bit until you give into whimsical, fleeting, contradictory, and sometimes bizarre demands, but after going through legal hell and a short sentence, everything will eventually be good again. Your choice is "no pain" or "short term pain."

This is called bullying in the fifth grade. Apparently it's now called politics once you're out of school.

Thus, if you're a dictator somewhere and hear an old man calling you out, you get a choice: just give in now and get out of the way, or endure some pain while you lose to the literally bigger man. Said pain might go away later when he decides you're no longer relavent to his current demands. Indeed, if you were attacked for committing real crimes, there's good news in your future: once pardoned you can go back to committing crimes. And even more good news: of the over two thousand folk that have been pardoned by the lumbering fool who's currently bullying you, only 13 are known to have been caught for any new crime.

Of course, "short term" may only be for 1143 more days until the next Bully-in-Chief is installed, so you might think you can endure the pain for that long. At least short of real missiles being fired that could result in a little more than pain being sent your way. And then there's the fact that you might think that you're the bully, so can't appear to give in, because that might cause you to lose your Official Bully membership card and priviledges.

I'll remind people of one thing: bullies exist because they're not getting what they want. They believe that by bullying they might. This always ends up in a King of the Hill game, and no one stays on top of the hill forever, no matter how good their bullying is.

It really would be nice to see the top of the hill unoccupied for at least a short time, or perhaps at least to have a benevolent and empathetic occupying the spot for awhile, but I have no doubts that the battles will just continue, as bullying is now being taught to the young as something grownups need to do.