Two Tracks for Trump: Gambler and Scoundrel

Which Donald Trump captivated your attention Thursday ― the gambler who brashly tried but failed to reach a deal stripping North Korea of nuclear weapons, or the slippery scoundrel described as a con man and a criminal by his former lawyer?

Both personas were on display as cable news operations spanning the globe covered Trump's scuttled summit meeting with North Korea's Kim Jong-un while chewing over Michael Cohen's congressional testimony.

Part gambler, part scoundrel.

Or maybe the mix you see is different, depending on your political outlook. Yet on any given day Trump appears capable of grasping for a nuclear disarmament deal or running himself into a ditch.

No presidents escape controversy. Their political decisions divide Americans as much as unite them With Trump, we see a more fundamental, lamentable divide between the policy work he pursues and his character failings.

That is, we see an unbridgeable contradiction between the go-for-broke presidency and the personally flawed president.

Two tracks were probably inevitable for Trump.

He took office ill-prepared for the job and disinterested in taming his raging ego, which makes him vulnerable to repeating stupid mistakes. It doesn't mean he's incapable of achievements.

It means he takes high-stakes risks, like this North Korea gambit.

Trump won office as a blunt-talking iconoclast, which pleased his supporters.

They were sick of politics as usual (and sick of being patronized by arrogant snobs who know what's best for everyone).

Trump's the same helter-skelter bettor today.

He trusts his gut. He knows what he wants to accomplish.

But he doesn't know much about conventional governance or diplomacy. And, in a disservice to his goals and his constituents, he refuses to moderate his impetuous behavior

As a result, Trump's time in the White House has been bedeviled by scandal and needless screw-ups.

Example: Trump's peculiar statement that he believes the North Korean dictator's claim that he didn't know about mistreatment of Otto Warmbier while the now-deceased American college student was imprisoned in his country.

Cohen's appearance before a House committee was a different-flavored reminder of the president's poor judgment.

You don't have to take Cohen's word for it. He's shady in his own right.

But there's enough corroborating evidence to recognize Cohen's assertion that Trump took office as 'the worst version of himself.'

Among many scurrilous stories Cohen told publicly, he testified...