Zuckerberg Steals PR Spotlight from Trump

Mark Zuckerberg

Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg is doing the thought-to-be impossible, topping Donald Trump as today's headliner, with his mea culpa on Capitol Hill for allowing Cambridge Analytica to "harvest" the data of 87M Facebookers, which possibly helped the Russians keep Hillary Clinton from the White House.

A grateful nation thanks you, Mark. You gave us a much-needed reprieve from 24/7 Trump.

The President did his level best to keep the media spotlight.

Trump railed over news that the FBI raided the office and hotel room of his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, in search of records about payments to stripper Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who claim they had sex with the now tweeter-in-chief.

Adding salt to the wound, Trump nemesis, deputy general Rod Rosenstein, who appointed special prosecutor Robert Mueller to investigate the president, personally signed off on the FBI's raid.

Trump stewed about whether he should do a package deal trifecta firing of Rosenstein, Mueller and attorney general Jeff Sessions.

Zuck, though, temporarily stole the PR show. Dodging cardboard Zuckerbergs wearing "Fix Facebook" shirts, the FB CEO—accompanied by a dozen handlers—cooly took the Senate witness chair to admit that his company didn't do enough to prevent its tools from producing fake news, interfering in elections, generating hate speech and destroying data privacy.

"We didn’t take a broad enough view of our responsibility, and that was a big mistake. It was my mistake, and I’m sorry. I started Facebook, I run it, and I’m responsible for what happens here," said the repentant Zuckerberg, according to his transcript.

The grilling continues tomorrow in the House, and then Zuckerberg flies off to California to try to restore user and investor confidence in his social media site. He'll fade from the spotlight.

The rest of us aren't so lucky. Trump isn't going anywhere for now and especially to this weekend's Summit of the Americas in Peru.

Officially, the president canceled the Peruvian swing to plan for a military strike against Syria to retaliate for its use of chemical weapons against civilians.

Really, does anybody think Trump was looking forward to going to Peru to share the stage with leaders from countries such as Mexico, Haiti, Nicaragua, Trinidad & Tobago, Venezuela, Uruguay and Panama? They don't rank high on Trump's A-List.

The media spotlight shines more brightly in DC than in Lima. With Zuckerberg gone off into the sunset, the president will have the spotlight all to himself.