Several Kennedy family members have asked to join the court fight against Trump’s proposed arch near Arlington National Cemetery. There are easier ways to tell someone you don’t want their gift, but apparently this one requires a docket number.

Their filing argues that the 250-foot structure would obstruct historic views and cast shadows over family graves and other memorials. The rendering includes a 60-foot gold winged female figure holding a flame, plus gold flying eagles.

Sixty feet. For the accessory.

Who was looking at this design and worrying it might be too restrained? Who leaned over the drawing and thought, yes, the giant winged woman is nice, but without the additional gold birds people might mistake this for a place to have a private thought?

It has the emotional subtlety of bringing a marching band into a library and getting angry because nobody stood for the solo.

And the location matters. This is supposed to go on a roundabout near the cemetery entrance, across the Potomac from the Lincoln Memorial. A place already doing a reasonably competent job of reminding people that other Americans existed.

But apparently remembrance needs an upgrade. Something bigger. Something gold. Something that makes you look away from the people you came to remember and admire the tremendous job somebody did reminding you.

It’s a fucking cemetery, not the entrance to a presidential mattress sale.

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Then there’s the paperwork. The administration contends Congress authorized the arch more than a century ago when it approved a bridge across the Potomac.

More than a century. Wonderful. A construction project whose permission slip qualifies for its own historical preservation hearing. Congress should be able to approve a bridge without the paperwork hatching a gold eagle a hundred years later.

I need a minute. I thought the difficult part of honoring the dead was finding the words. Apparently it’s locating a century-old authorization large enough to park a 250-foot doorway inside.

A judge has temporarily blocked construction through November 19 while considering a preliminary injunction. Fine. Take the time. Let the enormous gold accessories remain a drawing while adults check the instructions.

But wait. The White House says it’s unfortunate that members of the Kennedy family have joined the litigation, because the project is intended to honor the heroes resting at Arlington.

Oh, now they’re receiving the tribute incorrectly.

They—they have concerns about the graves, and the response is essentially disappointment in their manners. We went to all this trouble selecting the enormous doorway, and you couldn’t even pretend to like it until we left?

If your tribute requires the people visiting the graves to explain, through counsel, why they would prefer less of it, stop shopping for additional eagles.

You have reached the part of gift-giving where you keep the receipt and shut the fuck up.