I'll Have A Side Order Of Irony, Please

President Obama's approval ratings have already started to go down again. We're so fickle. Basically, we're saying, who have you shot for us lately?

~ JIMMY KIMMEL

We live in times that are grim in so many respects and have to abide politicians who are so awful in so many respects that the irony of Donald Trump's presidential crash-and-burn is deeply satisfying.

In one fell swoop, a man whose only talent is being confrontational is left to piddle on his Salvatore Ferragamo python loafers after being eviscerated by the president of the United States, a takedown so awesome that in one fell swoop the gravity defying house of cards known as the birther movement collapses under its own weight.

And while we're at it, how's this for irony:

* The Tea Party turns out to be Mitt Romney's best friend.

This group of self-absorbed snivelers, which gave the Republican Party a House majority but not a mandate, is so unfocused and out of touch with Main Street that while it may yet grease the skids for a victory by, say, a Michele Bachmann or Rick Santorum in the Iowa caucuses, only a moderate like Romney, or alternately a Mitch Daniels or Tim Pawlenty, has a snowball's chance of unseating Obama.

* Overturning health-care reform was going to be the issue that would give the GOP the traction to retake the Senate, if not the White House, but the issue looks more like an albatross than a greyhound.

This is because many Americans, including Tea Partiers, by golly, may oppose big government but they heart so-called entitlement programs like Medicare because they entitle them to healthier and long lives while not breaking their bank accounts.
* Ronald Reagan is the reining demigod of Republicans, but if alive today he be unable to pass the purity test that has transformed the party from a big tent to a tight sphincter.

No matter, because this icon remains eminently quotable for party bigs no matter the issue. Uh, except raising the debt limit, which as president he forcefully argued was an economic as well as political necessity.

* Finally, a new study finds that most political pundits are no better at predicting outcomes than tossing a coin. I know, who would have thought it?

Liberal pundits, it seems, are more accurate than conservative pundits at predicting the outcome of national elections on down. The most accurate is Paul Krugman, who perhaps not coincidentally won a Nobel prize in economics, while pundits with law degrees are more likely to be wrong.