Donald Trump should consider becoming his own solicitor general

OPINION:

President Trump’s single greatest strength is that he — and he alone — is his own top adviser and most trusted confidant. It’s just he, himself and @realDonaldTrump.

Which is kind of funny because Mr. Trump’s greatest weakness also happens to be that he — and he alone — is his own top adviser and most trusted confidant.

It tells you just how clueless the media is that they think Steve Bannon is somehow the actual president and Mr. Trump is just some kind of puppet.

Mr. Trump is no one’s puppet. But he does listen to people who he thinks know more of the details and particulars about an issue. And then he makes up his own mind.

It is how Justice Neil M. Gorsuch is sitting on the Supreme Court today.

But then you have a problem like Mr. Trump’s totally legitimate travel ban that died the death of a thousand legal paper cuts by silly judges who have no business being on the federal bench in the first place.

Grasping desperately for power, and certain that anything and everything is their domain, these black-robed harlots refuse to acknowledge the simplest truth that, of course, the executive branch can keep anybody from entering the country that they see fit.

If voters don’t like the policies of the executive branch, they can vote the president out of office in the next election.

Anything short of leaving that authority in the hands of the executive branch means we have entirely surrendered the notion of self-governance.

Anyway, Mr. Trump’s first travel ban hit a judicial buzz saw, and then a bunch of damned lawyers from Washington walked in offering to help. Before it was all over, they had watered it down to something unrecognizable.

They said it would get the job done without hurting so many people’s feelings. Mr. Trump shrugged and said fine.

Of course, everybody got offended all over again anyway.

Meanwhile, what is NOT happening? Well, for starters, terrorist attacks carried out by insane radical Islamic monsters have not stopped.

In fact, the frequency has reached a pace that it’s hard to keep track of the ones that happened in just the past week. And that’s just the attacks in the civilized world.

The ones being carried out in places like Afghanistan and Iraq and Libya and Syria don’t even make the evening news anymore.

The one in London hit a raw nerve, and Mr. Trump surveyed his still-gummed-up travel ban and was reminded of the bill of goods those damned Washington lawyers sold him. So he popped off.

On Twitter, naturally.

“The Justice Dept. should have stayed with the original Travel Ban, not the watered down, politically correct version they submitted to S.C.”

That would be the “Justice Dept.” as in HIS Justice Department, and “S.C.” would be the Supreme Court, before which his Justice Department lawyers will appear in order to defend his revised “Travel Ban.”

Seriously, this place really should not be this complicated.

It is a simple problem. We have all these people all around the world who want to bring “death to America,” and we would like to stop letting them in.

But because Washington politics is so broken and the federal government is so ungovernable, Mr. Trump finds himself in a legally precarious predicament — only slightly of his own making.

He is now the named chief executive who authored a travel ban that is now before the Supreme Court, while also at the same time publicly trashing his own said travel ban.

I get that it looks bad, but honestly, a reckless tweet is only a tiny, small percentage of the problem here.

The real problem is that we have a lecherous judiciary that usurps executive authority, a drunken Congress that doesn’t care and a federal leviathan that is so big and ungovernable that it is no longer remotely answerable to the voters.

But all anybody wants to talk about is how it’s all Mr. Trump’s fault because he is pissed off and tweeted about it.

Now I will give you this: Though I am a tremendous fan of the president tweeting, and I wish he would tweet more, frankly, I do wish that when it comes to legal matters, he would, as they say, cease and desist.

Someone last week on the endless cable blabberfest had it about right. When it comes to things like this — especially when Twitter is involved — Mr. Trump instantly grabs a grenade and pulls the pin.

And then he throws the pin.

It reminds me of some buddies of mine growing up. They thought it was hilarious to get some friends over to stand out in the middle of a field and fire an arrow straight up into the sky and out of sight — and then watch everyone scatter.

The problem with this fun little game, of course, is that the genius with the bow is in just as much trouble as everybody else.

Truth is, Mr. Trump really should kick his Twitter habit when it comes to anything legal. Or he could just go ahead and name himself his own solicitor general and argue his own case before the Supreme Court himself.

Actually, that might not be such a bad idea.

Mr. Trump is so good at doing his own press, maybe he should try his hand at representing himself before the bench.

It would, at least, be highly entertaining.

• Charles Hurt can be reached at churt@washingtontimes.com; follow him on Twitter via @charleshurt.