Victor Cortez phoned Wednesday morning with news that Donald Trump’s flunkies were blasting Frank Sinatra’s old hit “My Way” on the tarmac as Dear Leader took off for southern Florida where, if we’re lucky, he will spend the rest of his miserable life without venturing north again.

“‘My Way,’ haha,” I said into my phone. “That’s the perfect song for a departing, delusional blowhard.”

“Ironic, too,” noted Victor, who is my friend Swamp Rabbit’s parole officer. “Sinatra was for many years a liberal Democratic integrationist. Three words that Trump hates.”

“Here’s an even better irony,” I replied. “Sinatra loathed Trump, just like all the other people Trump cheated or tried to cheat when he did business.”

As Trump was staging his self-congratulatory farewell, Joe Biden was in Washington, D.C., preparing to make his inaugural speech and deal with the fact that Trump has debased the presidency by routinely lying, obstructing justice, using the office to advance his business interests, appointing unqualified grifters to high office, restoking racism, pardoning unrepentant murderers and thieves, trashing environmental laws, undermining the election process and inciting an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

“What am I leaving out? ” I asked Swamp Rabbit, who had just appeared on the front porch of my shack.

“Ain’t no room to list all the bad things Trump done,” Swamp Rabbit said, “but don’t forget to mention he let the coronavirus plague get so out of control that the death toll’s up to 400,000.”

Oh yes, there’s that. And the disheartening spectacle of an inauguration that was off-limits to almost everybody but the National Guard because of the plague and the fear that Trumpers would follow up on the insurrection and attempted coup.

“Not to mess up your day, but the evil varmint said he’ll be back in some form,” the rabbit added.

“In the form of a new killer virus, probably,” I said. “Let’s hope there’s a vaccine against him next time.”

Footnote: After a while, even Sinatra hated “My Way,” which features lyrics written for him by Paul Anka. For all his faults, Sinatra was a whole lot more self-aware and decent than Trump. But who isn’t?

One more: The Sid Vicious version of “My Way” would have suited Trump much better.