How Trump could bow out

When the going gets tough, the tough turn suicidal. Team Trump has had enough...

Following a week of high-profile blunders, Donald Trump’s antics have left the chair of the Republican National Committee “apoplectic” and his own aides “suicidal,” according to several reports.

An anonymous RNC staffer told the Huffington Post that Priebus frequently has to "talk Trump down off a ledge."

A longtime ally of top Trump staffer Paul Manafort also told CNBC’s John Harwood that Manafort is “not challenging Trump anymore” and is “mailing it in,” while the campaign staff is “suicidal." Manafort, for his part, denied the substance of Harwood's report.

Jason Miller, a spokesman for the campaign, called Harwood's reporting on Manafort "completely erroneous."

From what I've read of Manafort's handling of the Carl Paladino campaign, the Harwood report sounds persuasive.

In the past, Benedict Donald would make a cringe-inducing, hideously Trumpy statement maybe twice a week. Yesterday, we literally (and I do know the proper meaning of the word "literally") had a new scandal every four or five hours, if you average it out -- all due to the mouth that will not stop moving and the dainty, orange-hued digits that will not stop tweeting. Trump must not understand that you don't get a Purple Heart for self-inflicted wounds.

I'm sure that Putin must now regret his choice of dance partners. Since Vladimir does not speak English natively, he must not have comprehended how foolish and bombastic Trump sounds to our ears. The Russian leader may not have understood that "his" American was a complete idiot -- or, more likely, Putin over-estimated the American appetite for idiocy.

I imagine that Boris Yeltsin's American puppeteers had a similar moment of appalling realization: "Oh Christ. This boob's a goddamned lights-out drunk. Our Pinocchio can't even stand up."

Now there is wishful talk of a Trump withdrawal. Josh Marshall:

Let me start by saying I see no chance that Trump withdraws from the race, despite Republican wishful thinking to the contrary. Call it big game unicorn hunting. But unicorn studies is a perfectly respectable discipline. So I wanted to explore one aspect of this scenario. In the quite unlikely case of Trump leaving the race, who would replace him?

Mike Pence. Obvious. But:

Trump isn't an accident. His ascendence is tied to Republican voters who became a sort of frankenstein's monster of the GOP elites' own creation. Weened on decades of victim-speak, impossible goals, over-primed lust for revenge against various domestic bad guys and outsiders and perverts and all the rest, they finally rebelled and chose someone who at least said he could follow through on the political snuff films they see on Breitbart, Newsmax, WorldNetDaily and the rest.

Beautifully put. Still: Pence is the only possibility, because he carries the Trump seal of approval.

In order for this scenario to work out, Trump must choose to bow out. And I know a way he can do so gracefully...

"Those damned bone spurs are acting up again! They're the worst, most painful bone spurs ever! They're YUGE! Believe me!"