Opinion | Donald Trump, You Lucky Dog

There are lists of Donald Trump’s lies and lists of his alleged crimes.But the catalog of all the good things that have happened to the former president is equally unnerving.

Every dog has its day, but Trump — no fan of dogs, BTW — has had far more good luck than the average mutt.Of course, the man was born lucky — into a life of wealth and privilege and with looks that some women apparently find attractive.Like many indulged heirs, he quickly dispensed with those gifts, wasting away his fortune like a 20th-century tristate re-creation of “A Rake’s Progress.

It could have easily curdled into squalor from there.But one fateful day, along came “The Apprentice,” visiting the sulky developer in his moldering office.As my colleagues Russ Buettner and Susanne Craig document in their new book, aptly titled “Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father’s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success,” it was this improbable TV show that offered Trump a golden ticket out of bankruptcy and irrelevance, transforming him into a successful billionaire by pretending he actually was one.His lucky streak was only getting started.In the last eight years alone, the period in which Donald Trump, Presidential Candidate, morphed from a complete joke into no joke at all, Trump has been visited by strokes of chance that would light up the eyes of even the most disillusioned gambler.Judging by the way political sex scandals had operated since time immemorial, any seasoned bettor would have sworn that Trump’s then-nascent political career was over on Oct.

7, 2016, when The Washington Post published the “Access Hollywood” tape baring the Donald in all his grubbery.But Trump lucked out.The “Access Hollywood” scandal flamed bright and fast and died out just as quickly.

About a half-hour after the tape was published, WikiLeaks conveniently began posting emails Russian hackers had stolen from the account of Hillary Clinton’s campaign chair.The news cyc...