Trump lifts tariff bugging him at his own golf resort, leaves $4.31 gas alone.

…(cont) Nine days after that, at the trophy ceremony for the Irish Open, on his own golf course, the president announced he was lifting the 10 percent tariff on Irish whiskey. He had already cut it once this year, from 15 down to 10. Sunday he took the rest off. "Everyone's been bugging me," he said, naming the Taoiseach and a golfer, Shane Lowry, standing near the trophy. The tariff came off the day people asked him about it in person, on his own fairway.

The next morning, CBS ran the number that did not get a ceremony: gas up sixteen cents on the week, national average $4.31, concerns about oil prices following the president to Ireland the whole trip. Nobody at a filling station in Toledo got handed a trophy. Nobody got close enough to bug him about that one.

Run the two columns side by side. Column one: whiskey, ten percent, gone, announced at a podium with a trophy on it, because the people standing near the podium mentioned it. Column two: diesel, a record set this month and still standing, gas still at $4.31, no podium, no trophy, no ceremony — the relief lands where the asking got done in person, on a golf course he owns, and the pump price sits wherever it always sits, which is on somebody else's tab.

That is not a coincidence of timing. That is the filing working exactly as filed: relief follows proximity, and the fairway is closer to the man than the pump has ever managed to get.