This week in the saga

Tuesday afternoon the other kingdom fires nearly two hundred missiles at the small ally, and he answers in capitals: totally preventable, would never have happened. That same night the two running mates meet on a stage in New York and the whole thing is, for ninety minutes, almost polite; at two minutes past eleven he posts four words of approval and goes to bed. Then Saturday. He goes back to Butler — the same fairground, the same low farm horizon, a stage built on the spot where a bullet took the top of his ear off eighty-four days ago — and he opens by saying that as he was saying. The richest man in the world jumps onto the stage behind him in a black cap, both arms over his head. At eleven minutes past six, the exact minute of the shots, the crowd goes silent for the fireman who died in the bleachers, and a bell rings out over the field.