What can we learn from President Donald Trump's tweets and never-ending campaign speeches?
Lots. But we're not learning what he wants us to - what he thinks he's sharing.
On Monday, Trump broke ranks with eight previous presidents who've addressed the Boy Scouts' National Scout Jamboree over the past 80 years. He broke ranks by talking politics rather than values - values like service, citizenship and peacemaking.
"Who the hell wants to speak about politics when I'm in front of the Boy Scouts?" Trump said in front of 40,000 boys between the ages of 6 and 18.
Then he went on to call Washington a "sewer" and a "cesspool." And he spent the majority of his 35 minutes onstage to brag about his "record" crowd size, bash President Barack Obama, criticize the "fake media," berate Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign and threaten to "fire" his health and human services secretary if Congress doesn't vote for the Republican health care bill.
Just after 6 a.m. Tuesday, Trump grabbed his Twitter toy and took out once again after his "beleaguered" attorney general. (Trump in Monday's Twitter storm had given the "low-energy Jeb"-like moniker to Sessions.)
"Attorney General Jeff Sessions has taken a VERY weak position on Hillary Clinton crimes (where are E-mails & DNC server) & Intel leakers?" Trump drummed on.
Sessions (without his saying so) stands in the way of Trump firing or at the very least controlling the special counsel appointed by Sessions' underling to investigate Russian meddling in the U.S. election last November - the one in which Trump was elected. That investigation has now widened to include investigations of possible Trump campaign collusion with the Russians. The underling, Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, appointed Robert S. Mueller III as special counsel in May after Trump fired FBI Director James B. Comey for investigating the Russian meddling and after Sessions followed the law and recused himself in all matters pertaining to the Russian probe.
Trump said last week he wouldn't have picked Sessions if he'd known the attorney general would recuse himself because that recusal was "very unfair to the president." Now clearly Trump hopes to push Sessions to resign so he can replace him with someone "more loyal" - someone more predisposed to help Trump fire Mueller.
So who really looks beleaguered here?
Trump, of course.
Trump is the one - more than any of us - who sees his presidency as illegitimate - a term he for years cast upon Barack Obama as the then-wanna-be candidate Trump proliferated the fiction that Obama was not born an American citizen.
Trump is the one who can't focus on the reality that he has smaller crowd sizes than what his ego expects.
Trump is the one who can't accept that he lost the American popular vote to become president only thanks to the Electoral College vote.
Trump is the one who can't wrap his head around the fact that he is hugely unpopular and growing more so day by day.
Trump is the one who can't figure out how to govern or shape policy or even how to appropriately use his office to sway Congress.
Shoot, Trump can't even figure out how to talk to Boy Scouts appropriately.
But Trump's own insecurities, ego and low competence aside, consider these other signs that it is he who is beleaguered - even by his own party. Finally. Yes, finally.
Congress on Saturday reached a bipartisan agreement that defies Trump and stands by the Russian sanctions not only for interference in the election but also for its annexation of Crimea, continuing military activity in eastern Ukraine and human rights abuses.
And, the Senate struggled Tuesday to find votes just to pass a "motion to proceed" on health care (never mind an actual bill) on the president's top pledge and legislative priority.
Meanwhile, Trump's son-in-law has spent two days being quizzed by Congress about Russia ties.
Trump's chickens are coming to roost.
Trump is the one who is "beleaguered."