For one night, Biden was the media master while Trump was fumbling

Ah, such embarrassment.

- Clarence Page

Presidential campaigns will always surprise you, but I didn’t expect Donald Trump, a tireless master of media, to be tripped up by his own social media platform.

Trump had announced before President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address began that he would supply his own special commentary in real time on “Truth Social,” the social media platform in which Trump has a financial stake.

But, when showtime arrived, the webcast was disrupted by a series of power outages. There were more than 3,000 reported outages on the site in its first half-hour, according to Downdetector, a website that tracks user reports of web disruptions.

Even the master media manipulator hits static, among other perils, sometimes.

After the Trumpcast finally got underway, the former president unleashed a predictable burst of derogatory posts about the current president’s speech and fitness for office. Similar barbs were voiced by Trump’s fellow Republicans and other conservatives who criticized the speech as too “angry” or “political” or “divisive.” But few, if any, described him as “showing cognitive decline,” for which Biden can declare “mission accomplished.”