This, remember, is one of three departments I run.  The others are the Department of Pet Peeves and the Department of “Just Saying.”

Being in the coronavirus pandemic provides a lot of good opportunities for new quotes.  Here are a few:

FROM GEORGE CONWAY IN THE WASHINGTON POST:  “But it’s more than just narcissism that drives this failing, flailing president. However difficult they can be, even extreme narcissists can have consciences. They don’t necessarily cast aside behavioral standards or laws, or lie ceaselessly with reckless abandon.

“Trump’s behavior is conscienceless, showing utter disregard for the safety of others, consistent irresponsibility, callousness, cynicism and disrespect of other human beings. Contempt for truth and honesty, and for norms, rules and laws. A complete inability to feel remorse, or guilt.

“As a New Yorker profile of Trump put it nearly a quarter-century ago, Trump lives ‘an existence unmolested by the rumbling of a soul.’ That’s Donald Trump’s problem yesterday, today and tomorrow.

“It’s our problem, too, for now:  We remain governed by a soulless man with a broken mind. The damage will continue, and it won’t stop until voters end it.  Come November, it will be up to the eligible human population of this country to look to their souls, their consciences, their humanity — and to cast their votes for one of their own.

COMMENT:  Interesting to read Conway and know that he is married to a major Trump acolyte, Kellyanne Conway.  Still, his words are worth reading, especially this sentence:  “Trump’s behavior is conscienceless, showing utter disregard for the safety of others, consistent irresponsibility, callousness, cynicism and disrespect of other human beings.”

FROM WASHINGTON POST FACT CHECKER GLENN KESSLER:  He and his colleagues explore Trump’s tendency to double down on falsehoods in their forthcoming book, “Donald Trump and His Assault on the Truth.”

“One hallmark of Trump’s dishonesty is that, if he thinks a false or incorrect claim is a winner, he will repeat it constantly, no matter how often it has been proven wrong,” they write.  Though ‘many politicians are embarrassed.’ Trump ‘keeps going long after the facts are clear, in what appears to be a deliberate effort to replace the truth with his own, far more favorable, version.’”

COMMENT:  So true.  Trump’s instinct is to lie all the time, especially if lies reflect great, undeserved credit for him given his narcissistic personality.

FROM THE WASHINGTON POST:  Like Governor Jared Polis, Gina Raimondo in Rhode Island is accepting the reality that the coronavirus will be with us for some time, and the state needs to focus on protecting the vulnerable while mitigating stress on health-care providers. ‘Just because we may re-open the economy with the stay-at-home order doesn’t mean people are going to stop getting sick,’ she said recently.

COMMENT:  Raimondo sounds to me like one of the good governors who is trying “to do the right thing,” as tough as that is when there is tension between life and livelihood.

FROM JENNIFER RUBIN IN THE WASHINGTON POST:  “But then, this has been the story from the get-go: Trump minimizing, ignoring and contradicting expert advice as part of his magical thinking that refuses to grapple with reality, especially when reality reflects poorly on him.

“The president sought to obscure major problems by trying to recast them as triumphs,’ The Post reports.  He repeatedly boasted, for instance, that the United States has conducted more tests than any other country, even though the total of 6.75 million is a fraction of the 2 million to 3 million tests per day that many experts say is needed to safely reopen.’

“Where Trump leads, his cult will follow.  Trump can rely on his base’s anti-science bent, especially when he drowns out or ignores his own advisers. If he does not pay attention, why should his followers?”

COMMENT:  For the life of me, I cannot understand why so many Americans continue to support Trump who clearly stands as the worst president in U. S. history.