Sir, sir, what did you mean, sir?

Hours after Trump posted a string of tweets and retweets about “Obamagate” — a new conspiracy theory that holds Obama responsible for masterminding the Russia investigation and railroading former Trump administration National Security Adviser Michael Flynn into a guilty plea for lying to the FBI (never mind that there’s no evidence of investigatory misconduct) — Philip Rucker of the Washington Post called Trump’s bluff.

“In one of your Mother’s Day tweets, you appeared to accuse President Obama of ‘the biggest political crime in American history, by far’ — those were your words. What crime exactly are you accusing President Obama of committing, and do you believe the Justice Department should prosecute him?” Rucker asked, during a news conference that was ostensibly about the coronavirus.

The crime of obamagating, duh.

“Uh, Obamagate. It’s been going on for a long time,” he began. “It’s been going on from before I even got elected, and it’s a disgrace that it happened, and if you look at what’s gone on, and if you look at now, all this information that’s being released — and from what I understand, that’s only the beginning — some terrible things happened, and it should never be allowed to happen in our country again.”

So Trump. Let’s do some highlighting.

“Uh, Obamagate. It’s been going on for a long time,” he began. “It’s been going on from before I even got elected, and it’s a disgrace that it happened, and if you look at what’s gone on, and if you look at now, all this information that’s being released — and from what I understand, that’s only the beginning — some terrible things happened, and it should never be allowed to happen in our country again.”

What’s been going on? What happened? What’s gone on? All what information? What terrible things? What is “it”?

He’s the kid who never did the reading, and thinks the teacher won’t notice the string of empty signifiers.

Of course, “Obamagate” does not involve a crime, and there’s no evidence that Obama or his top officials conspired against Trump — quite the opposite. So when Rucker pressed the point by asking what exactly the ostensible crime was, Trump resorted to smears.

“You know what the crime is. The crime is very obvious to everybody. All you have to do is read the newspapers, except yours.”

More to the point, he resorted to yet more empty signifiers. You know; it’s very obvious; read the newspapers. Many words, no content. If he had anything he would say the thing he had. He doesn’t have that thing, he doesn’t have any thing. He has no thing.