No, it makes us look like a country with some semblance of the rule of law and some limits on the power of whatever deranged racist bully manages to get elected. Over the long haul that’s actually strength rather than weakness.

The White House may yet be vindicated. An appeals court might decide that the judge in Honolulu erred in his assessment of the new, more narrowly drawn travel ban. Or the Supreme Court could eventually intervene on his behalf.

…

But Mr. Trump’s frustration was evident at the rally in Nashville, where he mused about returning to the first version of his travel ban — without explaining how he would get around the courts’ earlier rulings.

“Let me tell you something,” Mr. Trump told his enthusiastic supporters, echoing the simpler days of the campaign, when courts did not get in the way. “I think we ought to go back to the first one and go all the way. The danger is clear, the law is clear, the need for my executive order is clear.”

And yet, even now, the president may not understand the power — and the implications — of his words.

At a the rally, Mr. Trump offered more verbal ammunition to support the judge’s critique of the travel ban. The president called his latest effort to restrict entry merely “a watered-down version” of his first attempt, which was also blocked by the courts.

He said it more than once, too. He repeated it for emphasis, waving his little hands around the way he does. “Watered down,” he repeated mournfully, pointing and pinching. “Watered down.”

Those words could easily serve to undermine his own lawyers, who have argued strenuously that Version 2.0 of the travel ban is different enough that it should pass legal muster.

In the near future, the president may find an appeals court judge once again citing his words in support of a ruling that he doesn’t like.

His vocabulary is small, his ideas are few – he’s stuck.