I want a president whose deals can be detected without asking the president.

Not a perfect president. Not somebody who solves international conflict before lunch. Just someone for whom the announcement of a success is followed, within a reasonable interval, by evidence that the other participants have heard of it.

An Associated Press analysis of Donald Trump's negotiating record describes the energy-infrastructure pause he announced between Russia and Ukraine: it never happened. He continued defending his assertion. Apparently, once he has reached an agreement with his own description of events, involving the combatants would only complicate matters.

This is not a small defect in the sales pitch. The product is the agreement. You can't substitute a confident account of having obtained one and accuse everyone else of being difficult when the fighting fails to reflect your excellent presentation.

AP traces the habit back to 1984, when Trump suggested he could learn what he needed about missiles in an hour and a half to negotiate arms control. Ninety minutes. I have spent longer choosing a password that a website will accept. Apparently the missing ingredient in nuclear diplomacy was someone impatient with the orientation.

The joke would be easier to enjoy if we were still discussing a businessman promoting himself. Unfortunately, the country has spent years being asked to treat that promotion as a transferable professional qualification. He says he's great at deals; therefore a deal must be nearby. Keep looking. Try under the tariffs.

Consider a smaller test. According to AP, Trump said the Lincoln Memorial's Reflecting Pool could be fixed for a little more than $1 million. The cost has been closer to $20 million so far.

I'm not suggesting every repair is simple or every overrun proves a swindle. I am suggesting that being spectacularly confident about the cheap price should not earn a separate excellence award when the expensive price arrives. At some point, the discount needs to appear somewhere other than his account of his own brilliance.

Nor does the AP analysis say every Trump deal failed. It describes mixed results. That's precisely why the permanent master-dealmaker costume is so absurd. Ordinary managers have results that can be compared. This presidency keeps asking us to compare results with the president's opinion of the president, an opponent reality is apparently expected to beat by thirty points.

My objection is to the grading system. Count what was actually agreed, what held, what it cost and who paid. Give credit for real accomplishments. Demand explanations for failures. Don't let a big announcement collect the trophy while the work is still searching for the venue.

The public shouldn't need an investigative team merely to establish whether “done” is a description or an aspiration. And Democrats shouldn't concede competence because a man delivers his self-appraisal at the volume of a departing aircraft.

By all means, negotiate. Do the difficult work. Then tell us what happened.

Until then, Donald, you're not closing the deal. You're closing the discussion before anyone checks.

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