President Donald Trump likes using Twitter, and he unleashes firestorms in the media daily with his sometimes, ahem, less than eloquent remarks. But his latest tweet about all the “Negative Press Covfefe” is taking over the airwaves and giving new legs to the theory that Mr. Trump suffers from sleep deprivation. Scholarly publications like USA TODAY are trotting out numerous experts that point to the danger of having a sleep-deprived person (especially a Republican) in a position of power
President Donald Trump, almost 70 years old, claims to get only about 4 hours of sleep per night. It’s been proven that significant lack of sleep leads to cognitive dysfunction, including the possibility of, I suppose, spelling mistakes.
The question on all progressives’ lips is “Hot Diggity Dog! Can we impeach him now? The answer is no. The constitution states that the president may be impeached and removed only for “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors”. Bad spelling doesn’t apply (it should be noted here that the term “covfefe,” as it pertains to sleep deprivation, is properly spelled “CovfefeZZZZZZZ”.
Sleep deprivation leading to incompetency isn’t a new topic. I wrote an article about Donald Trump’s sleep habits (which mirror Bill Clinton’s, Winston Churchill’s, among others, by the way) some time ago in my role as physician. There’s a notion that the elderly need less sleep, which may or may not be true. Therefore, it might behoove President Trump to take an Ambien once in a while. Given the incessant pounding he gets in the press, I might have taken a few bottles of it (maybe all at once) if I were him.
Although President Trump can’t be impeached for late night tweeting, he might be Covfefe’d out of office due to disability; mental disability, that is, from not getting enough sleep. The supposition is that the sleep-deprived are incapable of putting events into the proper perspective and taking appropriate action. Progressives point to provisions in the constitution that prevent a mentally-impaired president from continuing in office.
That provision is the 25th amendment: Section 4 allows the vice-president, a majority of cabinet members, or a body provided by Congress to declare that the president is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. If the president contests this, Congress meets to decide the issue, with a two-thirds vote required in both houses for removal from office.
Unless the president goes out in public wearing a pussyhat, that’s rather unlikely. Yet the Left is creative, being artists, Hollywood folk, and all. MSNBC’s Chris Matthews muses: “Can you impeach someone for just being who they are?” Or do they have to do something wrong?” Such a kidder, that Chris Matthews.
It’s possible that President Trump was just exhausted from a long foreign trip and fell asleep at the keyboard. It’s possible, as press secretary Sean Spicer intimates, that “Covfefe” has a hidden meaning known only to a chosen few. I suggest the former; as a resident in a large inner-city hospital, I have personally seen overworked surgeons fall asleep in the middle of a procedure, in one instance landing with a thud on the floor.
This doesn’t mean that Donald Trump is disabled, just human. As for “covfefe,” it’s clear to me that it means “Congress of Vienna’s Foundation for the Evaluation of Fidgety Elephants”. A Nigerian prince told me so. He says he’s going to make me rich, so I’m going with that.