"Democrat Congresswoman totally fabricated what I said to the wife of a soldier who died in action (and I have proof). Sad!"

Wow. I thought — even knowing Trump's penchant for defending himself — that he'd have kept silent on this one.

A woman's husband had died, Trump made a 5-minute telephone call, and Rep. Frederica Wilson, claiming to have been sitting with the widow and listening to the conversation on the speakerphone, went public with a snippet of quote from the conversation — the man "knew what he signed up for... but when it happens it hurts anyway" — and to assert that the widow remarked that Trump didn't remember the dead man's name.

The man's name was La David Johnson, and I'm thinking that if Trump resisted saying the name, perhaps he worried that he didn't have the right name: Could it really be La David? Is that a man's name?

And what was the whole context of the conversation? The chain of words "knew what he signed up for" could appear in a good-enough message of condolence. I've heard this idea expressed many times. It's one way that we praise those in the all-volunteer military. They are courageous and generous to put their lives on the line for us.

But I chose not to say anything like that yesterday, because I believed in the etiquette of giving priority to the widow's grief. The power of Congresswoman Wilson's speech was, I would have thought, that you can't respond to it. Common sense says: You'll only make it worse. You'll be taking the bait, giving the story another day of life and creating new evidence that will be used against you.

But Trump — the man is not normal — did not take the common-sense approach and keep silent. He's a man who fights back. His response is pretty good and in classic Trump style: "Democrat Congresswoman totally fabricated what I said to the wife of a soldier who died in action (and I have proof). Sad!"

He goes after the Congresswoman (and doesn't mention the widow, whose exposure was all the Congresswoman's doing).

He tells us the Congresswoman is a Democrat. We might stop there and say: This is politics. A Trump-hater, probably, taking the awful step of appropriating the widow's grief for political purposes.

Or we might read more about her. In the article I linked to (in The Daily Mail), I see that she — like the widow and the dead soldier — is African-American. She's also rich, 74 years old, misses a lot of votes in Congress, and avoided the Trump inauguration. Now, I'm thinking way too much about Wilson, but the question is: Did she lie? Who knows? I assume she at least presented what she knew in a manner that would hurt Trump. This becomes another Democratic Party in Trumpland story.

The claim that he has "proof" and the closing shot "Sad!" are classic Trump. Whether he has good enough character can't matter when he doesn't have enough characters (in the Twitter sense). Can it?

Of course it can, especially to people who already hate him. But they can't hate him anymore than they already do. Those who love Trump, I suspect, will accept "(and I have proof). Sad!" It's brusque — so is "he knew what he signed up for." But that's Trump, the man they love.

As for the people who neither love nor hate Trump, the lovers and haters might think such people do not exist. He's the ultimate love-him-or-hate-him guy. But I'm here to tell you there are such people. It's weird. But we exist.