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The dinner party at an old friend’s house was as chic as it gets. Then a Trump insider asked, “Who is the American president who had an affair with a French president’s wife?” It was an easy one. And it’s been out there for years: The Donald has claimed he did Carla long before she got hitched to Sarkozy, but she has vehemently denied it and called him a lunatic. Perhaps this is grounds for impeachment, for endangering an ancient alliance, or something as ridiculous. Mind you, it wouldn’t surprise me one bit; nothing that has to do with Donald Trump does anymore. Even though he does make it difficult to defend him by shooting off his mouth and his Twitter every two seconds, his enemies have become so desperate and their charges so outrageous, the 45th president of the good old US of A might even become popular—as long as they keep it up.

For example, I don’t know many people—except the handpicked crowd at the studio who cheered—who thought it was funny when Bill (penisface) Maher announced that Trump is having an incestuous affair with his daughter Ivanka. No newspaper or TV program condemned Maher. See what I mean? When columnist Drew Pearson made fun of Margaret Truman’s singing back in 1950, her father Harry threatened to punch him in the face, and the country cheered him on. Sixty-seven years later, a cesspool of a man who was once fired for denigrating American soldiers says something as disgusting as that and gets away with it. The networks and The New York Times have gone ballistic in their blind hate for a man who has been in office for about 110 days. Their latest caper is to put out rumors and then quote them as facts by sources who have asked that their names not be revealed in fear of Trump’s revenge.

Young Taki learned this lesson long ago. I was in a car with a girl named Liz who was having an affair with candidate Jack Kennedy. The man driving the car was a hack whose name escapes me but who had just interviewed the aristocratic Henry Cabot Lodge, running as vice president in Richard Nixon’s 1960 campaign. I had not experienced such venom, so I asked the hack—working for The Washington Post—if he had something personal against Lodge. “He was born with a silver spoon and he thinks he’s better than us, when he’s just a stuffed shirt and a phony.” That’s when the penny dropped. Henry Cabot Lodge was no stuffed shirt, had wonderful manners, had a great war record, and was extremely good-looking and sleeping with the mother of a friend of mine. The hack was ugly, badly laid, most likely had very ugly children, and was extremely jealous. End of story. Twenty-eight years later, Gail Sheehy railed against George H.W. Bush because he had gone to Yale and had a father who was a senator. She forgot to mention that Georgie Porgie left Yale as a freshman and was the youngest to volunteer for the Air Force, and was shot down by a Japanese Zero and spent a night in the drink in the middle of the Pacific before he was rescued. Again, jealousy of one’s superiors seems to have been the motive. I could write a book about jealous hacks, but I don’t know how many would be interested in reading it…

Incidentally, did you know that only 7 percent of journalists in America identify themselves as Republicans? And did you know that 90 percent of new online jobs in journalism are in counties Hillary Clinton carried? (Trust me, these figures I lifted from an impeccable study conducted by The Epoch Times.) Poor Hillary. Here’s the best: The draft dodger famously advised his wife to reach out to working-class whites. He knew all about them and had signed a welfare reform bill in 1996 in order to carry such states as West Virginia, Arkansas, Kentucky, and Tennessee that no Democrat had carried since the war. Hillary’s campaign manager, Robby Mook, cheekily replied that “the data run counter to your anecdotes.” The result: She stuck with a gay computer nerd named Mook and refused to visit Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, and The Donald won the presidency. Now she’s screaming bloody murder and blaming everyone but herself and Mook.

Yes, dear Takimag readers, the morally bankrupt journalism on display is enough to discourage any of you from allowing your children to take up the profession. Charles Moore once told me that hacks were considered one step above child molesters in Britain. My father went to his grave insisting that all journalists practiced blackmail. I think both Charles and Dad were joking, but my recent stay in the Bagel has confirmed the preening sanctimony and outright jealousy and hate by the media for the decent, hardworking, white Christian folks referred to as “deplorables” by a woman addressing a gay, lesbian, transgender, and bisexual convention.

Otherwise, everything is hunky-dory. The MoMC has returned to Europe, I have two weeks to go in the Bagel, and—barring accidents in the karate dojo—I plan to party to my heart’s content. If that displeases anyone, too bad. I only wish the hack who hated Cabot Lodge were alive. I’d use him as a punching bag in practice. Oooh, it would feel so good.