One Uproar After Another

Some years ago, a group of newspaper reporters came up with a headline that could work with almost any story. Here’s what they agreed on: “They’re at it again.”

With that breakthrough in headline-writing in mind, creating the all-purpose headline for stories involving President Trump is pretty easy: “He’s at it again.”

Take any week, and this headline fits one way or another on story after story. For instance, let’s check out a few news stories chosen at random from last week.

* Taxes: Playing games. Steve Bannon, the White House counselor, let it be known that he favors raising income taxes on the rich. Those whose annual income exceeds $5 million would see the top tax rate rise from 39.6 percent to 44 percent. The revenue would be used to lower taxes on the middle class and below. And Democrats would be appeased.

We could have ignored this except for what Trump then said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. “If there’s upward revision it’s going to be on high-income people,” he said. “I have wealthy friends that say to me, ‘I don’t mind paying more tax.’ ” That prompted a wave of speculation. Trump loves to stir things up.