Mar 13, 2017 4 min read

“Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my “wires tapped” in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!”

Donald Trump in an early-morning tweet, March 4, 2017

President Trump had convinced a lot of people (not me) that he was capable of living up to the awesome responsibilities of being a grown-up, when he gave that speech before Congress a couple of weeks ago.

“I am here tonight to deliver a message of unity a

nd strength, and it is a message deeply delivered from my heart,” he told the nation.

To that, I looked at my watch, then asked myself, “How long will that last?”

Turns out, only took a few days.

By the end of the week, he’d managed to gum-up his own works by firing off a series of nasty, pre-dawn tweets, that proved, once again, that Mr. Trump needs a dunce-cap.

Not only had he accused former President Obama of being a “Bad (or sick) guy,” because he believed he’d ordered the communications at Trump Tower wiretapped; worse, he was calling Obama a felon.

Within hours after Trump’s latest unsubstantiated Twitter-tirade, past U.S. National Intelligence officials flooded the 24-hour news cycle to strongly deny that a sitting president can have the authority to order surveillance on private citizens.

By the next day, FBI Director James Comey let it be known that he’d immediately asked the Justice Department (the folks who’d know if there had been wiretaps) to knock down Trump’s irresponsible attacks on Obama.

While there’s a fair amount of evidence that Trump had merely learned about the false claims by either reading it on Brietbart’s alt-right web site, or by hearing it from talk show host – I have another theory.

Trump’s speech had been on Tuesday night.

On Thursday, Trump’s Attorney General, Jeff Session, announced he was recusing himself from any investigations involving the 2016 presidential campaign.

Sessions hadn’t exactly told the truth during his confirmation hearings about meeting with Russians before the election.

That recusal apparently didn’t sit well with Trump. Probably because the glow of his speech two nights earlier, had been forcefully doused by more Russian intrigue.

Something else happened that day that could’ve really sent Trump into a Twitter-fit.

While Trump and Sessions were sagging under the weight of yet another White House controversy, it was announced that Obama would receive the JFK “Profile in Courage Award.”

Oh, my!

Trump may have known that the person who’ll present that award in May, Caroline Kennedy, was quoted as saying that, “Throughout his eight years in office, he (Obama) had represented all Americans with decency, integrity and an unshakable commitment to the greater good.”

Trump’s apparent jealousy of Obama, especially with his much higher popularity, seems to get the best of him.

For instance, nobody really believes, as Trump has proclaimed, that his inauguration attendance was bigger than Obama’s.

Pictures don’t lie.

While Trump ricochets from one faux pas to another during his first month and a half in office, at the same time, Obama is receiving accolades.

Could that have played some role in Trump’s Saturday morning Twitter-tantrum?

Meanwhile, even Republicans in Congress are struggling to take Trump’s claims against Obama seriously.

To their credit, they even appear straight-faced when reporters ask about them.

There is a need for Republicans to stick close to Trump while they work on an agenda he might sign into law.

But there’s some indication that a few Congressional Republicans are growing weary of getting blind-sided by Trump’s penchant for paranoid, late-night Twitter-rants.

The Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Devin Nunes, was asked about the claim that Obama had bugged Trump.

Nunes’ committee can investigate the claim if Trump presents any evidence that it’s serious.

“The president is a neophyte to politics,” Nunes says, as if that’s an excuse for his ill-tempered, unproven attacks.

My goodness.

He’s the president of the United States of America.

That’s like saying he’s a 70 year-old who can’t get out of third grade, so we’ll just keep grading him on a curve.

Edward A. Owens is a three-time Emmy Award winner and 20-year veteran of television news. E-mail him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net