The past week has brought an unusual amount of bad news; so much that it's been difficult to focus on any one item before you're buffeted by the next horrific headline. Here are a few of my personal observations on some of these recent events.

1. Murder of Rob and Michele Reiner, and President Donald Trump's response.

I still cannot grasp that Rob Reiner and his wife are dead; murdered in such a horrific fashion. Mr. Reiner was a talented comedian and a brilliant director whose films consistently displayed his deft touch with humor and his insights into the best of humanity.

Reiner's politics were spectacularly ill-informed; his diehard beliefs that President Donald Trump was a traitor and colluded with Russia were not only false, they were fed to him by the very people -- Hillary Clinton, James Clapper, John Brennan and former president Barack Obama -- who confected the story in the first place. Reiner's friends played him for a fool, and -- I daresay -- used him, his visibility and his platform in Hollywood to prop up their lies, including and especially with the Committee to Investigate Russia.

That is all unfortunate, but in the face of the unfathomable tragedy Reiner's family, friends and colleagues are facing, it is also irrelevant. Rob and Michele Reiner had their throats slit, their daughter Romy discovered their bodies, and their son Nick -- a lifelong drug addict with a history of mental health issues -- has been charged with their murders.

The only -- only -- proper public response by any human being to a tragedy of that magnitude is one of dignified compassion and respect. That is even more the case if a public comment is being given by the president of the United States. Alas, that seems to have been beyond Trump's capacity for restraint. Trump's social........

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