"a disgraceful and embarrassing decision"

Being passed over for the Nobel Prize is something we all experience. Unlike the president of the United States, our disappointment doesn't make global news.

The president used the opportunity to engage in one of his favorite rhetorical practices: a super density of evaluative adjectives.

The prize is "forever discredited" and its judges "radical" ideologues.

The president gets evident pleasure pre-and post-modifying nouns with emotionally loaded descriptors.

But they also serve numerous purposes: stressing through the use of absolutes, creating mental associations, and, perhaps, reminding the world that he does not indeed suffer from cognitive decline.