Trump was headed downhill fast. Faster than ever, actually. While it seems he has been headed downhill from the moment he was sworn in, for some reason he has always had more room to fall. But no matter how you look at it, November and December were tough months for his image and his place in history. He probably spent the holidays trying to figure out how to get out from under the constant drumbeat of "impeachment" "impeachment" "impeachment". While his removal from office is no closer to being realized than it was before the impeachment proceedings began, the fact that the daily news cycles were centered on that singular topic for so long had to take its toll on the thinnest-skinned person ever to hold the presidency.

It's not hard to imagine the actual conversations going on in and around the White House while Congress was recessed.

Trump: "What can we do to change the subject?"

Lackey #1: "It would have to be something really big. A really big deal, Mr. President."

Lackey #2: "Mr. President, with everyone in America either staunchly for you or staunchly against you nothing is going to change until the people get united behind something."

Intelligent Person in the room (an amalgamation of various people who don't really exist in the Trump administration, but who can cobble together an intelligent thought once in a blue moon): "It's natural for it always to be 'Us' vs. 'Them', Mr. President, so what we need if for the 'Them' to be someone other than Democrats and for the 'Us' to be both Democrats AND Republicans."

(BEAT as everyone absorbs the intelligent person's statement, with varying degrees of success.)

One Lackey or another, speaking to Intelligent Person: "Are you saying we should start a war?"

Trump: "THAT'S IT! That's what we'll do. We'll start a war. That will give the networks something new to talk about, Fox News will love it because it's a tough-guy move. It will be such a big news story that CNN won't have room for anymore fake news, they'll have to talk about how great of a move Trump made. All Americans will love it, they'll rally around the troops, and me as the leader. They'll be so mad at the enemy because we'll tell 'em how evil they are that no one will dare say it's a mistake. Then after we win we'll have a big military parade in DC and the people will cheer me wherever I go. The new headline will be, 'President Trump Is The Greatest Wartime President in the History of Our Great Nation.' Get me Esper. Get me Pompeo."

Intelligent Person: "Mr. President, American troops will die. And besides, who will you attack? You pledged to end our involvement in Middle East wars, not start new ones."

Trump: "Pssshaw . . . shut up! Do you think I care about American troops? I don't give a shit about anyone but me. Do you think I care about promises I made? Since when does that matter? You're FIRED!"

. . . And now here we are, on the brink of all out war with Iran -- not a pushover military like that of Saddam Hussein's Iraq -- which will be commanded by a brat of a President who doesn't have the slightest idea what he's doing, or why he's doing it, or what will happen, or what he wants to have happen -- other than everyone talking about something other than his upcoming trial in the US Senate.

And here's the worst part . . . it seems to have worked. POLITICO just published as story with the headline, "Iran Overshadows Impeachment as Trump Leaves Congress Staggering".

I hate to admit that there's a shred of any admirable qualities in Donald J. Trump, but he does seem to know how to get and keep people's attention. He knows what will sound good, what will resonate, what will dominate and how to manipulate the media. He hasn't always had complete control of the story, but in this case, when he clearly had zero control of the story in late autumn of 2019, he yanked control back with a vengeance in the first week of 2020.

I haven't consumed all of the wall-to-wall coverage of the Suleimani killing, its aftermath, the ad libbed attempts to throw together a palatable explanation and all the rest of it. But I have read, listened to and watched a decent amount of it. Amidst all the opinions and perspectives I've heard, I've been puzzled that there's a lot of effort to try to figure out what Trump is doing or trying to do here. "What's his strategy?" they ask. "What's his next move?" "What is the message he was trying to send?"

Really? Does anyone actually think that there's a cohesive strategy here? Has there ever been a cohesive strategy in Trump's White House on anything? I don't think there is a next move planned. There probably won't be a next move. The only message he was trying to send was "I'm still the f'n' President! See, I can still do shit! Watch this!!"

For all the pundits looking for the next move, or the bigger strategy, why are you still looking? Whatever Iran or any other entity does next, Trump has already achieved the very simplistic goal he set for himself in this matter -- we're not talking about impeachment today.