COME BACK, JEB!:

Heading into the 2016 election, Republicans knew that this problem -- the tea party predicament, the Freedom Caucus conundrum, the Boehner bog -- had to be dealt with. The GOP needed a large and capable leader who could either unite the whole party (at least temporarily) with a bold, unifying conservative vision, or peel off some centrist Democratic support with innovative policy. They needed an above-average president.

What they got is unimaginably distant from any of these goals. They got a leader who is empty -- devoid of even moderately detailed preferences and incapable of using policy details in the course of political persuasion.

Republicans got a leader who is impatient and easily distracted -- by cable news on the Russian scandal or by Arnold Schwarzenegger's TV ratings. The content and consequences of his tweets are bad enough; worse is the disordered personality traits they reveal -- vindictiveness, shallowness and lack of discipline. Trump spent a total of 18 days on his health care bill before demanding a vote. And he made no speech to the nation to advance his ideas -- as every other recent president would have done.

Republicans got an administration that is incompetent. The White House policy process has been erratic and disorganized. It has failed to provide expert analysis and assistance to Congress and did little to effectively advocate the president's policy in ways that unite the party.

Republicans got an administration that is morally small. Trump's proposed budget would require massive cuts in disease research, global development and agricultural programs -- just as a famine gathers a hideous strength. The proposed budget practices random acts of gratuitous cruelty.

This is a pretty bad combination: empty, easily distracted, vindictive, shallow, impatient, incompetent and morally small. This is not the profile of a governing party.

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