There is a lot of competition for the most inane commentary on the triumphant State of the Union Address that President Trump delivered last night.

CNN attempted a pre-emptive strike before President Trump even began speaking by speculating, as First Lady Melania Trump arrived, that her cream colored outfit was an echo of Democrats wearing white a year ago at the presidential address to a joint session, to allegedly protest President Trump’s “anti-woman” policies. This inanity was preceded by inferences that something was wrong with the First Lady arriving separately, accompanying guests, instead of riding with the President.

Transcript via Media Research Center:

WOLF BLITZER: First lady, there she is, Melania Trump walking down the stairs. Let me bring Jake and Kate in. Kate, first of all, you've been reporting she did come up separately from the President.

KATE BENNETT: That’s correct. She did drive up separately this evening from the White House to the capitol. She accompanied the guests that were invited to sit in her box tonight. We do hear from the White House, however Wolf, they will be driving home together. The President and the First Lady will share the ride home. But it is, again, bucking tradition that she drove up on her own.

JAKE TAPPER: Is there anything you want to tell us about her outfit?

BENNETT: You know, she's wearing a cream-colored suit there, which I find interesting. Remember last year the female Democratic Senators all wore white. A bunch of them to protest Trump's policies against women. So there was even a hashtag, “#WomenWearWhite.” Listen, it could be a total coincidence, but I just find a lot of the stuff she does these days, to look at it twice.

TAPPER: I think Maureen Dowd called her the “Slovenian Sphinx,” everybody looking at her and trying to decipher the mysteries.

BENNETT: Exactly, very mysterious.

Chuck Todd’s entry in the contest for stupidest commentary was strong, inadvertently reminding us of President Obama’s inability to deliver a coherent speech without reading a script off a teleprompter. Todd discounted what President Trump said because:

“… we know it's not him. It's him reading off a teleprompter.”

Three networks filed reports in the vein of Groucho Marx’s question: “Who are you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes,” characterizing the optimism and love of country suffusing the speech as doom and gloom. Perhaps they were looking at the Democrats, all dressed in black as if at a funeral, and featuring angry and sad facial expressions

ABC saw a

‘Divisive,’ ‘Gloomy,’ ‘Sad’ SOTU Speech ‘Stoking...Racial Tensions’

NBC’s entry trashed  a:

‘Subdued,’ ‘Tired’ SOTU Speech Full of ‘Hyperbole’ for Fact-Checkers

But CNN, the reigning champion on the Trump Derangement Syndrome Derby managed to provide two examples of the circular firing squad strategy. Via MRC:

First, both Jake Tapper and Gloria Borger both managed to imply that patriotism is anathema to President Trump’s foes.

Tapper did admit that Trump talked about some policy items Democrats could get behind, but bemoaned how the President suggested that all Americans were Dreamers:

But by the same token, I think President Trump doesn't actually necessarily understand just how offensive many Democrats in that chamber are going to find some of the things he proposed and some of the things he said in terms of, there are Americans who are dreamers too, et cetera, some of the things he said about immigration that are going to turn off a lot of people in that chamber. (snip)

Tapper pointed out the story about a young boy who organized 40,000 flags to be placed on fallen soldiers graves and claimed it was an example of Trump being divisive.

“A beautiful story. One that everyone in the country can unite behind, the idea of honoring veterans, honoring people who have sacrificed,” Tapper said. “But he used that story as a way of taking a shot at NFL players who take a knee to protest police brutality during the national anthem. So then again, you have simultaneously something that everyone can get behind and also a framing that is going to alienate some people.”

A short time later, Borger chimed in to strongly agree with Tapper’s premise:

I want to echo something Jake said. Because on the one hand, the speech could be kind of sunny and moving when you talked about some of the anecdotes and the people who were in that gallery. And then he would turn quite quickly to America first, to saying that Americans are dreamers too, to policies that are quite divisive. And I think he's gotten a little more adept at doing this. And we see that in this speech.

For its clean-up hitter third entry, CNN actually trashed its own poll because it was too favorable:

CNN prefaced the release of their very positive State of the Union reaction poll by claiming it wasn’t repetitive of the nation. “It's not representative of the country overall it is a poll of people who watched the speech. Well, who watches a State of the Union address? Fans of the person giving it,” declared Political Director David Chalian.

So many absurdities that it is really hard to choose. It was a bonfire of the inanities.