For a brief moment, I thought Washington had returned to being the seat of government.
Then I read about the recent Oval Office shouting match.
Jeanine Pirro playing the exasperated policeman.
Doug Burgum insisting the clown car wasn't his.
Donald Trump in the center ring trying to decide which performance deserved the loudest applause.
We've seen this show before.
During Trump's first term, governing often resembled a traveling circus. Cabinet secretaries contradicted one another. Advisers wandered in and out of favor. Oval Office meetings became episodes. Every day seemed to end with someone explaining that what everyone had just witnessed wasn't really what had happened.
The remarkable thing isn't that disagreements occur inside a White House. Every administration argues.
The remarkable thing is that the arguments themselves become the performance.
At some point, the line between governing and entertainment grows so thin that it becomes difficult to tell whether the administration is running the government—or merely producing another day's episode.
Ladies and gentlemen...
The circus is back in town.
Or did it ever really leave?
— Dunneagin
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_ A note on the shelf: Every Tuesday dispatch compiles toward a permanent, physical record. We print what the screen forgets._