In these troubled times I am reminded of the sad story of Joe Carollo. Longtime Floridians will remember him as a Miami-Dade County commissioner who performed a public meltdown about 1995.

After the business with the cocaine and the floozies, poor Joe was eventually arrested in Tahiti.

It was then that I learned a trope known to psychologists, not previously known to me. It goes: "First, you think you're funny; next you think you're sexy. Third, you think you're invincible. Fourth and, tragically, you begin to think you're invisible."

At the time I thought this applied to misbehavior at cocktail parties or to the occasional county commissioner run amok. I couldn't imagine then I would ever have to worry that such a personality could actually occupy the White House.

William B. Reid, Winter Haven