"This whole thing has been really surreal and absurd... it’s a relief, but there’s a detachment to that relief of extreme concern for other people and for our country."

Said David Hearn, "the Olympian," quoted in "Judge Dismisses Former Olympian’s Felony Charge in Reflecting Pool Case/The move ends the criminal case for David Hearn, a former Olympic canoeist, after prosecutors acknowledged that the Trump administration’s claims of vandalism were false" (NYT gift link).

"The episode culminated in a consequential showdown in the Oval Office between [Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney], who appeared to be fighting for her job, and Mr. Trump, with Doug Burgum, the interior secretary, in attendance. Ms. Pirro told Mr. Trump that Mr. Burgum had misled him with a self-serving cover story for his own mistakes. Mr. Trump seemed considerably less angry by day’s end, and Ms. Pirro emerged from the meeting with her job intact, for now."

And here, with a gift link, is "Inside the Oval Office Showdown Between Trump and Jeanine Pirro/Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, told President Trump that his interior secretary, Doug Burgum, had misled him with a self-serving cover story for his own mistakes."

That article, from August 4th, says "This account... demonstrated a core truth of Mr. Trump’s second term: Anyone willing to contradict the president is in trouble, even if the dissenter happens to be a family friend who has faithfully executed his prosecutorial agenda over the years."

Yeah? But Pirro got her way, and she's still there. So much for "a core truth."

"Given all of this newly discovered information, it is difficult to attribute the widespread damage to the reflecting pool to vandalism."

Wrote Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney.

Quoted in "Charges Dropped in Reflecting Pool Case as Prosecutors Say Work Was ‘Botched’/A former Olympian will not face trial after federal prosecutors acknowledged that the Trump administration’s claims of vandalism were false" (NYT).

One could read that headline to mean that the work done to the pool was botched OR that the prosecutorial work was botched. But the first sentence of the article makes it clear: "Federal prosecutors on Friday acknowledged that contractors hired by the Trump administration had 'botched' the renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool."

Souvenirs.

"Officers said they observed Mr. Thiers and Mr. Carreno reach their hands into the water, peel pieces of blue sealant off and pull them out of the water, according to arrest records. Officers also found a piece of the reflecting pool liner in Ms. Dennison-Gibby’s purse, the records showed."

From "Three More People Charged With Damaging Reflecting Pool/The three individuals face misdemeanor charges of causing damage worth less than $1,000. Experts have said that the problems could have been caused by the pool’s makeover" (NYT).

"How the Reflecting Pool Turned Green.... Bulky 'nanobubbler' machines were carted off ahead of a promotional event for President Trump’s Ultimate Fighting Championship birthday party."

The NYT reports.

The decision to remove the water-treatment systems, which has not previously been reported, was one of several missteps that have plagued Mr. Trump’s $16.4 million renovation of the Reflecting Pool. There have been no-bid contracts, peeling strips of waterproof coating in Mr. Trump’s handpicked shade of “American flag blue,” and even a dead duck floating in the water (though it is not clear if the renovation had anything to do with the duck’s demise). In recent days, the water has become clear again, reflecting the sky and the surrounding monuments. The temporary nanobubblers have been replaced with more discreet, permanent purification systems. Still, the Park Service plans to drain the pool again soon to fix the peeling coating....

The pro-algae crowd...

More footage from the liberal ‘Pro-Algae protest” that took place in Washington DC

Liberals cheer for algae growth at The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool to spite Donald Trump cleaning the area

Imagine this being your life…. I know what we’re all thinking, what are the… pic.twitter.com/i1Fo6Su8oQ

— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) June 21, 2026

... and the rubber rippers...

🚨 NEW: Fox’s Peter Doocy just asked Jeanine Pirro if ABC’s Jonathan Karl is in trouble after President Trump called him out for ‘sticking his hand in the Reflecting Pool trying to rip the rubber off the surface.’

Doocy: “Judge, is he in trouble?”

Pirro: “If you damage,… pic.twitter.com/zfaK2TJHHz

— TV News Now (@TVNewsNow) June 21, 2026

"I was just a curious, concerned citizen. I guess I was there at the wrong place, wrong time."

Said David Carter Hearn, 67, "a cyclist and three-time Olympian as a canoeist who says he stopped at the [Reflecting Pool] on Friday just to have a look, then reached down to touch a strip of peeling blue paint mixed with the algae. The U.S. Park Police arrested Mr. Hearn shortly after, accusing him of destroying government property, a crime that can carry up to a 10-year prison sentence."

I'm reading "Trump, Claiming Vandalism, Says Reflecting Pool Will Likely Need to Be Drained/The pool has taken on clouds of algae after a hasty renovation. A three-time Olympian was charged with destroying government property after he says he touched one of the strands of blue paint peeling off the pool’s bottom" (NYT).

"The administration has not released the names of others accused of vandalizing the pool, a crime that Mr. Trump said on Saturday could lead to 'years in jail.' In a later post, he said without evidence that vandals had 'poured corrosive and destructive chemicals into the Pool.'"

I don't know if the claims of vandalism are true, but the temptation to vandalize was obvious and strong even before Trump started talking about vandals. Now, it's unavoidable, and I think we will never have our pool back where it belongs in the American psyche. It's a mess, a bone of contention, a symbol of everything and anything people don't like about Trump. The pool never worked as it was intended, and now its essential badness is glaring at us, and it will never calm back down into the serene murky swamp it once was. 

The Mystery of the Paint Peel.

Link.

They had to know this would happen: "Trump’s $14m 'American flag blue' reflecting pool turns green with algae."

I'm reading the news in The London Times.

[E]xperts who warned that the dark blue colour would absorb more sunlight than the original light grey concrete and become a perfect environment for algae to bloom were quickly proven correct... This week workers appeared with bottles of hydrogen peroxide that they poured into the 6.75 million gallon pool. Officials said that this would work with the new ozone-injected nanobubble filtration system that was supposed to combat the growth of algae... “This is some six-and-a-half million gallons of water we’re talking about here, so that’s a lot of bottles of anything that you’d have to add,” Steve Goodale, a pool maintenance expert.... “But the hydrogen peroxide is an oxidizer itself, in the same way that the nanobubbler system is, so the two systems are essentially the same thing, just a different approach to it.”

I hope they fix it, but for now, it's at least embarrassing.

There's a strong temptation to uglify what Trump has made such a show of trying to beautify.

There's all that water in the Reflecting Pool. Is it well guarded? There are all those fountains and statues. And then there are the great stretches of well-tended lawn.

Now, we're seeing "Large etchings of numbers signaling opposition to Trump appear on National Mall/A White House spokesman decried the numerals '86 47' marked into the grass near the World War II Memorial as an endorsement of political violence" (WaPo)(gift link).

White House spokesman Davis Ingle responded to a request for comment on the markings with an email. “Anyone who engages in or endorses political violence or assassination culture must be condemned in the harshest terms possible,” Ingle wrote. “They should also immediately seek psychiatric help to treat their severe and debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome that has warped their brains and made them sick in the head.”

I just wrote, at the end of the previous post, "The more grim, puritanical, humorless, imperious, and repressive you are, the funnier it is to make fun of you." There's a similar concept at play here: The more you show how much you care about pristine beauty, the more exciting it becomes to besmirch it. We can't have nice things.

Oh, but those who endorse the idea "86 47" might respond, these "nice things" are not nice. They are Trump things and therefore the ugliest things of all. To desecrate them is to move in the direction of true beauty. 

Can we not all love the new pool?

I stopped by the new Reflecting Pool. It is simply glorious. There were a thousand people, everywhere, taking pictures and just enjoying its beauty. Thank you President Trump for restoring our city’s national treasure. pic.twitter.com/Ii7DlEItfd

— Howard Lutnick (@howardlutnick) June 10, 2026

"The problem with putting in a reflecting pool? The darn thing reflects. When the light off the Reflecting Pool bounced up onto Lincoln's face, it looked as if a flashlight had been held up under his chin."

Wrote Sarah Vowell, back in 2005, in her very entertaining book "Assassination Vacation," which I recently reread. The link goes to an excerpt of the book at the NPR website. There's also audio of Vowell reading her text, which she does extremely well.

Here's more context:

"[Daniel Chester] French obsessed for years about how to sculpt Lincoln's peculiar face, fretting and reading and thinking before committing to the brooding, seated philosopher in the memorial. He received the commission in 1913. So by the time the memorial was finally dedicated nine years later, the sculptor was a little pent up worrying how his work would come off. Hoping to celebrate, French looked upon the final installation with horror. The problem with putting in a reflecting pool? The darn thing reflects.

Live feed of the filling of the Reflecting Pool.

Can we all just say it looks beautiful? Pick the answer closest to what you think.

Never. It looks like Trump. That's all I see and that's always ugly.

Let's be empathetic to those who are so deeply troubled by Trump that they can't see what is true.

It's objectively beautiful, and everyone ought to acknowledge what is true.

 

pollcode.com free polls

AND: I just made a tag for "Reflecting Pool" and added it to old posts in the archive. The oldest post is striking. It dates back to the Obama administration, September 26, 2012:

I just wanted to get a look at the refilling of the newly blue Reflecting Pool.

But I couldn't avoid seeing this video, shared by Trump:

🚨 LMAO!! President Trump just dropped this absolute GEM: He's filling the newly improved Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool with leftist tears

Straight from the source 🤣🤣

📽️ @TheRicanMemes pic.twitter.com/NJrOdFR750

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) June 4, 2026

I guess that's an effort to visualize what has become the stock joke: The pool will be filled with "liberal tears."

ADDED: Actual footage, showing how the color will work out:

 

"But blue is a color we associate with injury: Think of the mottled black and blue of a bruise. It is the color of authority and stereotypical masculinity..."

"... of depression, but also tranquility; of cleanliness; of cold; of winning first prize. And so we must ask: What is American Flag Blue?"

I'm reading "Did Trump pick the right blue for the Reflecting Pool? We asked a pool guy. Old Glory Blue? American Flag Blue? Let’s reflect on all the shades, while a federal judge mulls 'aesthetic injury' in the president’s latest decorating flourish" (WaPo).

It's a dark blue, we're told, not swimming-pool blue, which would be too light and bright, not the right somber blue. But it's Trump's blue, so somber — and flag-oriented — is also bad.

"Just because American Flag Blue looks good on a flag, it doesn’t mean it will necessarily look good slathered on a length of more than 2,000 feet, says Jill Morton, a professional color consultant. 'The context of a color is what matters,' says Morton. 'That dark blue, if it is that dark, oh man, that’s going to look very, very dismal.'"

Fear of blue and desperate clinging to "character-defining grey."

"The resurfacing will dramatically and permanently transform the character-defining grey, achromatic appearance of the reflecting pool basin. The new colouration will cause the pool to resemble a large swimming pool rather than the reflective civic landscape it was designed to be, distorting the experience of the site for the millions of visitors who come to it each year."

So said the Cultural Landscape Foundation, a Washington society, quoted in The London Times, which looks like this, going all in on AI imagery:

I was going to ding the the Cultural Landscape Foundation for writing "grey" instead of "gray," but when I saw "colouration," I had to assume that The London Times imposes its British spellings on quoted material.

It's funny how people are getting cranked up over the color blue. The Foundation associates blue with backyard summer fun incompatible with what the reflective pool is supposed to be.

Well, plenty of people think something filthy, dirty, and disgusting looking is representative of the country.

Imagine an art installation titled "America." It wouldn't have sparkling clear water bubbling cheerfully now, would it?

But I'm reading "Trump Says He’s Renovating ‘Filthy’ Reflecting Pool on the National Mall/The pool, which is more than 2,000 feet long, was the site of Martin Luther King Jr.’s 'I Have a Dream' speech and other events" (NYT)

“It’s filthy, dirty — the water’s disgusting looking,” Mr. Trump recalled a friend telling him. “It’s not representative of the country.”

Mr. Trump said he went to inspect the reflecting pool with members of the U.S. Secret Service and Doug Burgum, the interior secretary. He said one contractor proposed removing the pool’s granite and replacing it with stone as part of a three-year renovation that would cost $300 million.

“I said, ‘No, there’s a better way of doing it,’” Mr. Trump recalled. “I said, ‘What we’re going to do is I’m going to call all three of these people that have worked for me in the past doing swimming pools.” He said he told the contractors to “give me a good price,” and one agreed to do the job for $1.5 million to $2 million. 

He said the contractor began work two weeks ago and has “scrubbed” the surface of the pool.

“Now we have a nice, clean surface on which we’re putting an industrial grade swimming pool topping,” Mr. Trump said in a video on social media. “They said, ‘What color would you like, sir? It’s called American flag blue. I said, ‘That’s the color I want; I want American flag blue.’”

The huge discrepancy in cost comes, I assume, from using industrial grade swimming pool topping instead of replacing the existing granite with new granite (or other stone). That might strike some of us as trashy. It needs to be quite grand. It's not another swimming pool. And is that "American flag blue" going to be garish? Is it going to look quite different and consequently seem like an expression of Trump's personal taste. The pool has traditionally made people think about Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr. Is that blue swimming-pool material going to force us all to think "Trump!"?

To be fair, the granite has always been a problem. It's not only expensive to re-do the pool with stone, it would probably begin a whole new century of the kind of leakage and settling that has plagued the pool since the 1920s.

"Less than a month after reopening, the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is full of algae, a sea of green overshadowing the nearly two-year, $34 million renovation of the famous site."

"This is a direct consequence of the fact that this is a green project,” said spokeswoman Carol Johnson. “The conditions are pretty good for algae, once it gets in there.”

Visitors to the pool described it as similar to “split pea soup,” “muddy,” like the “surface of the moon” and “icky-looking.”

“It doesn’t look like a $34 million circulation job,” Jim Carroll, 85, of Wisconsin said as he looked out over the pool....

“It doesn’t reflect well on the city at all,” Carolyn Rossinsky, 49, of Miami said as she sat near the pool.

“It looks like green fluff,” she added.

You wanted green... and you got it.