Putting aside all the other political smarminess of the report, the claims about his not knowing when his son died were really disgusting to me.

I can't speak for others' experiences, but in my experience, when you go through something as traumatic as that the last thing you're gonna remember is the date. For one thing, that's the least important part of the story. And for another thing, the time before suddenly seems less real and you never forget that the time after will go on forever.

I lost my dad at some point when I was in middle school. Middle school is as much as I know about the year and I only remember that much because I remember which teachers had horribly awkward conversations with me about it. If I needed to know the year I'd have to stare into space and start doing calculations.

It's always triggered a weird kind of internal shame for me, but everyone I know who's gone through something similar has said the same thing. I've been seeing commentators of all political stripes, who've clearly never gone through anything half as traumatic as that, saying that this man is broken because he responded to grief in a totally normal way, and it's really disgusting.