It took him a while, but the president of the United States has weighed in — more or less — on the arrest of a Coast Guard officer who allegedly has mounted threats against Democratic politicians and members of the media.

Donald Trump’s response was, shall we say, a bit more tepid of a message than he has delivered against, say, NFL football players who “take a knee” during the National Anthem. Trump told reporters today that “it’s a very sad thing when a thing like that happens.” He has yet to condemn the individual who is accused of plotting the attack.

The self-proclaimed white supremacist had developed a lengthy hit list of targets, including members of cable news networks and a smattering of progressive/far left/liberal politicians — Democrats, if you please.

Trump was silent for a week. He didn’t say a single word about the arrest. It’s not as if he didn’t have time. The president made the effort during that time to fire off Twitter messages about a wide-ranging manner of issues: Robert Mueller’s investigation, Andrew McCabe’s new book about his service with the FBI, Jessie Smollett’s arrest of disorderly conduct in connection with a charge of filing a false police report that claimed he was the victim of a hate crime.

The president cannot, therefore, say he was “too busy” to bother with a tweet about an alleged act of domestic terrorism from a member of the so-called “alt right.”