Thirty-six hours into this and already it’s one of the two or three most enjoyable political scandals of my lifetime.

Woke bro Justin Trudeau gets dinged not once, not twice, but three times for blackface — and still can’t say that those are the only times he did it?

We’re like two hours away from video surfacing of this guy performing “Mammy.”

Repeatedly asked whether there were more instances of brownface than those already recovered, Trudeau again says they were regrettable, adding, "I am wary of being definitive about this, because the recent pictures that came out I had not remembered." https://t.co/DdaQrDDaUE pic.twitter.com/U7L3oKqLiN

— ABC News (@ABC) September 19, 2019

Does he wear blackface … casually? Like, does he unwind after a hard day at the office by pouring himself a drink and dabbing on a little greasepaint? It seems plausible at this point that Trudeau has spent more of his life in blackface than out of it.

Or maybe Alex Griswold is right: “Have we considered that Trudeau might just be a black guy frequently wearing whiteface?”

A fun subplot to all of this also flagged by Griswold is the reluctance of some parts of the media to use the term “blackface” to describe what he did. Whatever this handsome young beacon of progress is guilty of — “dark make-up,” “face darkener,” “cosmetics of a conspicuously dusky hue” — it can’t be described as “blackface.” Blackface is what insensitive right-wing racists do.

https://twitter.com/HashtagGriswold/status/1174698932447920128

Watching them try to accuse one of their favorite politicians of “blackface” feels like watching Fonzie try to say “sorry.” It’s so glaring that Trudeau himself called them out on it at his press conference this afternoon:

“I appreciate you calling it makeup, but it was blackface.”

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he “shared the moments that he recollected” of his use of blackface, after three images of him surfaced in the past day pic.twitter.com/yF6SP5uplT

— Bloomberg Quicktake (@Quicktake) September 19, 2019

What keeps getting me is that he made the blackface as garish as possible. He didn’t go for C. Thomas Howell “Soul Man” skin tones or a plausible-ish Robert Downey Jr “Tropic Thunder” look. He went full shoe polish. And he didn’t forget his hands and arms, notes Stephen “redsteeze” Miller.

Was this full-body coverage, all the way down to and including “little Justin”? He was *really* owning this look.

And he was doing it, I remind you, at the age of 29, as the son and heir to a Canadian prime minister of world renown. Someone needs to ask him at what age, precisely, and under what circumstances he finally grew aware that blackface is offensive. Did it dawn on him when he hit 40?

He’s doing his best to be contrite, as you’ll see in the final clip below. But if I were him, I’d embrace a full woke defense: “I don’t do it to mock oppressed peoples, I do it to share their burden. In fact, I’m going to put some on right now.” Call it wokeface, not blackface. The full Dolezal. Alas, he’s chosen to grovel instead.

NEW: Canadian PM Justin Trudeau: "Darkening your face, regardless of the context or the circumstances, is always unacceptable because of the racist history of blackface."

"I should have understood that then, and I never should have done it." https://t.co/9shXOtcjRG pic.twitter.com/wDtrhpK39D

— ABC News (@ABC) September 19, 2019