I was going to add this as an update to my last post, but I have to give it more than that. Consider this a piece of evidence for Allahpundit’s theory that this White House is just going to stick to what it wants to talk about no matter what is happening in the world, no matter how tragi-comical it becomes from the outside. For years, tweets from @BarackObama have popped up in my Twitter feed so often so very detached from the actual events of the day as to feel like some kind of non sequitur performance art. This outdoes all of them.

This tweet is from the official State Department account, from Jen Psaki, at 9:26 p.m.*, hours after two huge international stories have broken. Now, the administration perhaps can’t be expected to react to the actual events at issue seriously. Too much to ask. But what they do sometimes react to seriously is a p.r. issue, and they’ve had many hours to realize everyone thinks they’re muffing this. Would it be so much to ask to keep it relatively sober tonight?

And yet. And yet.

Great piece by former colleague Alyssa Mastromonaco who defines smart, savvy and fashionable http://t.co/zJGlE5XKp6 via @washingtonpost

— Morgan Ortagus (@statedeptspox) July 18, 2014

Maybe it’s time to take the semi- off of semi-retired. Today, the president had the opportunity to do the two things (maybe the only two things?) that are in his wheelhouse—respond to a tragedy with a decently written and serviceably delivered speech and react to a p.r. crisis in such a way as to spare him and his team immediate political consequences. He can’t even be bothered with either of those.

* The embedded tweet says 7:26 p.m. because I’m in the Mountain Time Zone.