Roseanne, Rosie and Stormy

It was bizarre to learn the president of the United Sates telephoned Roasanne Barr after the premiere of her renewed family comedy last week."I called her yesterday. Look at her ratings! Look at her ratings! I got a call from Mark Burnett, he did 'The Apprentice.' He's a great guy. He said, 'Donald, I called just to say hello and to tell you did you see Roseanne's ratings?,'" Trump told an audience in Richfield, Ohio, on Thursday. "They were unbelievable. Over 18 million people. And it was about us."About us? More on that later.Indeed, it still feels strange — devastating, really — to have a reality TV show host as president. He seems to still revel in TV "ratings" more than he likes being president. He also seems to be choosing cabinet members of late based on a narcissistic grading system: The more nice things about him a potential pick says the more likely they are to get a job with his administration. That seems more fit for TV than it is for a nuclear-armed world in which Vladimir Putin appears to be the most powerful person and the more sane leader.It's also strange to hear Trump talking nice about someone who's sometimes called "Rosie." He's a man, after all, who waged a juvenile fat-shaming war against another Rosie (O'Donnell) for years. It's strange, too, and disappointing to hear this Roseanne pay Trump homage."I've known him for many years and he has done lot of nice things for me over the years," Roseanne told ABC's George Stephanopoulos. "It was just a friendly conversation about work and television – and ratings…He really understands ratings and how they measure things."Well good for Roseanne. Trump's done "a lot of nice things" for her? The entire non-base of America — especially empowered women — just shared a collective barf.But she is an empowered woman. Her sitcom, "Roseanne," is about the "us" who elected Donald Trump in 2016, just 11 days after his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, paid Stormy Daniels $130,000 to sign a Non Disclosure Agreement and keep her mouth shut about a sexual encounter she had with Trump years earlier.Trump knew nothing about the NDA, he never had a sexual affair with the porn star, and Cohen paid her off with his own personal cash from a home equity loan, Cohen contends. It's a completely unbelievable sequence of fabrication on his part, but that's now the new normal for the "us" who elected Trump president. Trump is forgiven all Clinton sins, especially the made-up ones.The only bright spot is the priemire episode of the re-booted "Roseanne" show was pretty remarkable. Unlike the relative worthlessness of "The Apprentice," the Conner family is dealing with a divided America manipulated by lawyers peddling NDAs, sprinkled with porn stars who have more integrity than our president and his lawyer, Playboy playmates who thought "the Donald" loved them, and Republicans who never learned how to stand up to a narcissistic man who golfs way too much.God save America.*Note: This column has been corrected to fix five spelling errors pointed out by reader TractorDrivingSOB.