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But Trump's sunny disposition could not hide the folly of a presidential order that was written and signed without consultation with the departments of Defense, Justice or Homeland Security, the departments responsible for the order's enforcement.

Yet administration officials said they would not back down on the order, even as it was being tweaked on Sunday to exempt green card-holding permanent residents.

Yet a little more care might have avoided the Monday night drama that resembled a constitutional crisis. Trump fired acting Attorney General Sally Yates that evening after she ordered Justice Department lawyers not to defend the immigration order. Her act "betrayed" the department, said a White House news release, by "refusing to enforce a legal order designed to protect" American citizens.

Will Trump's policy make Americans safer? There's nothing inherently wrong with what Trump calls "extreme vetting," although he's not speaking factually when he claimed "we don't know anything about" refugee applicants now. In fact, he inherited a rigorous vetting process that usually takes about two years to complete.

But the biggest problem with Trump's program is not so much in what it is as in how it was implemented. The administration's callous disregard not only for the inconvenience but, in some cases, injustice only adds more fuel for the propaganda and recruitment machines of the Islamic State and other Islamist terrorists.

With Republicans firmly in charge of Congress and the White House, there's not much that Democrats can do to put a check on Trump's excesses, except perhaps make some eloquent speeches. So far, Trump's outspoken Republican critics are few. But give him time. Once labeled a "chaos candidate" by his rivals, he's turning into a disaster-prone president.

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(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@chicagotribune.com.)

(c) 2017 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.