(Above: President Trump at the inauguration where he proclaimed the "America-first" foreign policy he is now abandoning in favor of the liberal interventionism favored by Hillary Clinton.)
There is no truth to the rumor that, after watching an episode of "Gilligan's Island" on TV, President Trump ordered a search party sent out for the passengers and crew of the S.S. Minnow.
But he does tend to get carried away with what he sees on television.
We saw that last week when he launched a missile strike on the basis of what he admitted was his emotional reaction to a video.
In doing so, he went against the advice of a prominent Republican who in the early days of the Syrian civil war was saying things like "Don't attack Syria - an attack that will bring nothing but trouble for the U.S. Focus on making our country strong and great again." (Here's a long list of Trump's tweets arguing against intervention in the Mideast.)
That Republican was Trump. He got a lot of votes from conservatives who believed his oft-stated promise that the U.S. would no longer be "the policeman of the world" in a Trump administration.
Meanwhile in a recent interview, the Democrat he defeated, Hillary Clinton, was calling for the U.S. to attack Syrian air bases, a move that would risk war with Russia
Clinton's hawkishness have cost her the 2016 election. Enough Democrats defected to the Green Party's Jill Stein in four key states to put Trump over the top.
But once safely ensconced in the Oval Office, Trump forgot his foreign-policy promises and got lost in the swamp of Washington politics.
That brought us to the brink of disaster, said one swamp exile with whom I like to discuss Mideast policy.
Pat Lang was cast out of the swamp for the sin of actually knowing about the Mideast, where he spent 20 years in military intelligence.
"The swamp swallowed Trump," Lang said. "He came down here to deal with this collection of characters who inhabit Washington, and they successfully seduced him."
Perhaps the most odious creature in that swamp is "that F-ing idiot" John Bolton, as Lang calls him, based on many encounters.
Bolton's views are the polar opposite of everything Trump was saying in his campaign. He was a ringleader of the group of so-called "neo" conservatives who led President George W. Bush into the Iraq War, which Trump termed "a big fat mistake" in a 2016 debate.
Yet Trump recently named Bolton as his national security adviser.
That brought us to the brink of disaster last week, said Lang, as Bolton fought with Defense Secretary James Mattis over action in Syria.
"Bolton wanted to have a much bigger strike, one that would seek to cripple the Syrian army," he said. "Mattis resisted that successfully."
What we got instead was a pinprick attack. Lang is one of the few Americans who have actually been to the three sites that were struck.
"When I was in Syria I had the defense attache drive me around to actually see these places," Lang said. "They picked facilities where the chances you're gonna kill people was very small."
So we dodged that bullet - perhaps literally. The question is what Trump does next.
Perhaps his "mission accomplished" proclamation means he'll be going ahead with his stated intention to pull U.S. troops out of Syria.
Or perhaps he'll go along with the Bolton's stated goal of regime change in Syria. Then it's on to Iran.
Or so Bolton hopes. Back in 2004 when it still looked like the Iraq War was going well, Bolton was quoted as telling Israeli officials that after Iraq, "it will be necessary to deal with threats from Syria, Iran and North Korea."
Of those three, only North Korea represents any threat to the U.S. Syria and Iran are regional powers with regional goals.
"The idea that Syria is somehow a threat to the interests of the United States is incomprehensible to me," said Lang.
Also incomprehensible to him is how Trump could trust an "armchair general" like Bolton who passed up his own chance to fight a war.
"To avoid service in the Vietnam War, he joined the Maryland Army National Guard and hid out for four years," said Lang, who was a Green Beret in that war.
Why did Trump choose a national security adviser who opposes everything he claims to support? Lang has a theory: He saw Bolton on TV.
"I think he's seeking to orchestrate things so he's the star in a reality show called 'The Greatest President,'" he said.
Here's my suggestion for Trump's TV viewing: Watch reruns of those debates in which you criticized everything Bolton stands for.
Then tell him, "You're fired."
Now that would be some reality TV.
BELOW: You and I have no way of knowing what actually happened behind rebel lines in Syria. But here is a video that Trump might want to watch. He should have waited for international inspectors reported back on this. And then he should have left it up to other countries to sort it out, as he promised conservatives back when he was campaigning.
Also check this clip from Tucker Carlson, one of the only Fox News talkers who is a conservative. And then there's this analysis from one of the professionals on Lang's blog.
ALSO, check this account from a reporter who visited the scene. Then ask yourself why the U.S. is intervening on the side of the terrorists.