David Hearn is 67. He canoed in three Olympics. On Thursday he stood in D.C. Superior Court and pleaded not guilty to a felony for allegedly pulling loose about two square feet of pool liner. Two square feet. That's a bath mat. * AP's headline: "Former Olympic canoe racer pleads not guilty in Reflecting Pool damage case." Very calm. Very court-reporter-doing-their-taxes energy. You'd never guess the courtroom was packed to the walls with supporters chanting his name. * Here's the real repeat offender in this story, and it isn't a 67-year-old with a paddle — it's the liner itself. It's part of a $14.6 million no-bid contract, handed to a Virginia company that, Trump himself has said, also did the pool at his golf club. That company billed a 20% profit margin on the job. Industry standard is 6 to 12%. The liner has failed often enough that the whole pool is being drained AGAIN to fix it. Again. * So: the guy who touched two square feet of failing plastic is facing up to 10 years. The contractor whose plastic keeps failing is facing a second paycheck. If this were a restaurant, it's like arresting a customer for poking a moldy breadstick while the bakery that made it gets the catering contract for next year's gala too. * Hearn says he touched a loose chunk and let go the second a park worker told him to. Prosecutors say "forcefully and violently." Whichever version you believe, nobody disputes the liner was already peeling before he got near it. It came that way. * AP didn't get anything wrong. It just covered a $16 million accountability story as a two-square-foot vandalism story.