There is good evidence the Syrian government once again used a gas attack on its own people, which pissed off Trump so much that he canceled a visit to Latin America so he could investigate all the options. Shortly afterward he made this early-morning tweet: "Russia vows to shoot down any and all missiles fired at Syria. Get ready Russia, because they will be coming, nice and new and 'smart!' " Of course the entire fucking world interpreted this as a threat, and literally the next day Trump said, "Never said when an attack on Syria would take place. Could be very soon or not so soon at all!"

Trump and his tweets provide for the first time in history a president's thoughts -- not necessarily his decisions -- in real time as crises are going on. I have no idea what Obama was contemplating as he weighed the options about sending that SEAL team on bin Laden. I equally have no idea what Bush's daily deliberations were as the headlines piled up during the financial crisis in late 2008. But I can see how Trump swings his opinions as he has his first knee-jerk reaction, his next line of attack after the news or his advisers respond, and how he suddenly moves onto another topic after he sees some other news story. And I doubt we'll ever have this opportunity again because any following presidents will see how often Trump shoots himself in the foot with these tweets. In some way it's a shame because no matter how horrifying it can be at times, this is a historian's dream to be able to enter a leader's mind. And yet even then, with the possible exception of Andrew Jackson, I doubt any other president's tweets would be as entertaining. How fucking lame would Jimmy Carter's twitter be?