So that’s why a woman can’t be elected president. Maine Sen. Susan Collins.

You know Suzie. She’s one of the dimwit GOP Senators who agreed to a trial without witnesses or evidence obtained in the second half of said trial. She also, as expected, voted to acquit Trump.

All of that would be understandable — or at least explainable — had Collins simply followed the example set by her lemming colleagues. But, she couldn’t help but try to tactically dodge a political hot potato that ended up hitting her square in the face — and the face of all women seeking equal footing in the workplace and beyond.

When asked during an interview with MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell whether she thought Trump would feel free to run amok with Senate protection, Collins said this:

“I believe that the President has learned from this case” and that Trump “will be much more cautious in the future.”

This is an astounding statement, one that suggests political naivete, constitutional softness and, most damaging, an unfitness for the job — a reputation no non-white male can afford to shoulder, particularly in the heat of a presidential race.

How do you possibly say that, after three years, on live TV and still maintain a straight face? Name a single lesson (other than that bankruptcy isn’t a presidential deal breaker) that President Napalm has learned in that time. To be presidential? Nope. To treat the leaders of of other nations with a modicum of diplomacy? Nuh-uh. To pronounce “origins?” Come on, a president can learn only so many words. You know how long it took him to memorize “quid pro quo,” let along announce it? It’s unfair to ask impossible tasks. “Origins.” As if. (If it didn’t want to be mistaken for a fruit, it shouldn’t have spelled itself so similarly to “oranges,” right Donnie?)

For Collins to say Trump will learn his lesson is her claiming the check’s in the mail. And it conveys the very stereotype that Republican women cling to when they say they want a no-bullshit leader: That women are too soft, too forgiving, to malleable to play pro sports with the boys. Hillary Clinton won the popular election by 3 million votes and penised Washington still took it away We know why GOP men resist scrapping the college: It’s their last rung of political power. But I’ve yet to hear a single GOP woman call for reform. Perhaps there have been. But I haven’t heard it, maybe because women don’t reap the headlines we do. Another reason to change stewards.

Bernie Sanders took a lot of shit last week for reportedly telling Elizabeth Warren that a woman could not be elected president of the United States. Whatever you think of that claim, Collins just echoed it — in a much more public and poisonous venue: the halls of the Senate.

Warren’s mediocre performance in the first two Democratic primaries, while not a reliable barometer for the country’s air pressure, suggests the uphill battle any woman faces seeking public office. And that won’t be helped by Collins’ Pollyanna prediction for Trump, because here is what he did the first week of his acquittal:

• Established an official channel at the Department of Justice to deal with information about Ukraine, as well as Joe and Hunter Biden, being collected by Trump personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani.
• Announced congressional investigations into the Bidens.
• Fired Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman (and his twin brother) as well as Gordon Sondland, the former ambassador to the European Union, after Vindman and Sondland testified in the House impeachment investigation.
• Protested the “harsh” sentencing guidelines for convicted felon Roger Stone, prompting a  Department of Justice’s reconsideration of those guidelines and the resignation of the four federal prosecutors involved in the case.
• Targeted senators — including Utah Republican Sen. Mitt Romney — who didn’t vote with him on impeachment.
• Held an unofficial “celebration” ceremony at the White House, where he declared victory, held up “Fake News” headlines, praised his friends and supporters and promised a day of reckoning for his “persecutors.”