For the love of Pete

We can never say, "I've seen it all, now."

Remember the other day when the president* said that Hurricane Dorian posed a threat to Alabama, and then the National Weather Service told all the people in Alabama to relax because the president* didn't know what he was talking about, so they all shouldn't run off to the Piggly Wiggly to buy 250 loaves of bread? Whereupon, the president* expressed his annoyance at his own National Weather Service for its role in helping him look foolish? Again. (Maybe it was just their turn.) This resulted in a couple of days of social-media snark directed at the president*s Very Great Brain.

Cut to Wednesday morning in the Oval Office.

  Charles P Pierce

On Wednesday, during an Oval Office briefing on Hurricane Dorian, President Trump displayed what appeared to be an official National Weather Service map from last Thursday, in which the storm's projected path was extended to Alabama by someone using a black marker.

  NPR

"Someone."

Trump is known to use Sharpies to sign bills and to mark up newspaper and magazine articles. But the White House has so far not commented on who altered the weather map, or if indeed a Sharpie was used.

[...]

At a subsequent event, Trump was asked about the apparent addition to the map. "I don't know," he answered.

"I know that Alabama was in the original forecast they thought it would get it as a piece of it," he said. He again insisted there were forecasts in which Alabama was considered in the storm's path.

It's because he said Alabama was in the hurricane path and got made fun of.

Over the weekend, President Trump also insisted that Dorian's projected path included Alabama. "Alabama could even be in for at least some very strong winds and something more than that, it could be," he said Sunday.

[...]

Some on Twitter also noted that, under law, knowingly issuing a false weather report is a violation of the law subject to imprisonment and or fine.

But as we all know, he's above the law.

At the end of last week, the National Hurricane Center did include Alabama in its prediction for tropical-force winds.

Of course they did. They got the memo.

But by Sunday, the National Weather Service in Birmingham, Ala., clarified that the state would not feel any affects of Dorian.

He's been consumed by this.

The tweet that started it:



The next day:





Today:





Not "almost all" models predicted Alabama.  Only a handful.  And those aren't predictions.  They're computer-generated possibilites from the inception date. And it also shows Louisiana and Mississippi as possibilities, so why not mention them?






...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.


UPDATE 9/5: We'll never hear the end of it.




 





UPDATE 9/6:  This will shock you:

President Trump was the one who doctored a projection of Hurricane Dorian's path before the map was displayed during a White House meeting between Trump and acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan, according to a White House official.

An unnamed official told The Washington Post that Trump himself edited the map provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to include a projection that included the state of Alabama.

“No one else writes like that on a map with a black Sharpie,” the official told the news outlet.

  The Hill

UPDATE: