A friend of mine forwarded to me a recent article from the New York Times detailing at great length all the warning signs about the coronavirus threat that Mr. Trump supposedly ignored or minimized, resulting in inaction that led to our present crisis. Let's set the record straight.
News about this strange virus in Wuhan began emerging in December and early January. While news of the virus was building up what was preoccupying the complete attention of congress, and inevitably to some extent the President? An impeachment trial which was carried on from January 16 to February 6, an exercise which Speaker Pelosi, and everyone else, understood to be pointless given the makeup of the Senate.
Despite this, was the President distracted enough to ignore the virus as his enemies contend? Well, on January 31, while the trial was ongoing, he imposed a ban on all flights from China, a dramatic decision at the time, which was criticized as being unnecessary by the World Health Organization, and which Joe Biden, and for that matter Bernie Sanders, labeled as hysterical and xenophobic. Shortly thereafter came the same condemnation from the clairvoyant New York Times and the Washington Post as well as all the anti-Trump TV networks.
By this time in late January Mr. Trump had already formed and met regularly with a Task Force to evaluate and advise about the matter, which included as members Dr. Fauci and later Dr. Brix as well as his other health and economic advisors.
What were they advising? Well on February 17 Dr. Fauci, in an interview with USA Today, stated that the risk of coronavirus in the U.S. was miniscule and that we should worry more about influenza. He advised that we definitely should not be avoiding Chinese restaurants because of excessive concern. I saw him being interviewed only yesterday on the Jesse Watters show, and when asked about his statements, he explained that this was based on the erroneous information he had about the transmissibility of the virus. Really Dr. Fauci? On February 17, more than 2 weeks after the Chinese flight ban. Don't get me wrong. I admire Dr. Fauci's expertise and integrity as much as anyone else, but I point this out to demonstrate how difficult potential events were to predict, even for an epidemiology expert.
But Dr. Fauci wasn't the only one. On February 24, Nancy Pelosi made a publicity tour of the San Francisco Chinatown, particularly to calm the concerns of the local business owners. During the event she said that there was no reason for tourists or locals to be staying away from the area out of fear over coronavirus concerns and even implied that to do so was racist.
The President went on to ban all travel from Europe on March 12 and then announced the federal guidelines on social distancing shutting down the country on March 16. Showboat Jim Acosta looked in the retrospectoscope and asked in one of the press conferences how many less people would have died if he had put the guidelines in place 2 weeks earlier. That would have been when there was a total of 5 deaths in the country, and incidentally 573 deaths from influenza.
The decision to close schools, non-essential businesses, concerts, sports events, social gatherings, church services was courageous and painful. As we all understand, millions lost their jobs, most especially the little guys, the waitresses, hair stylists and assembly line workers that the political allies of the New York Times claim to represent. How many 40 somethings who put their savings in hock and went into debt to open a new business have seen everything disappear in a flash. And the trillions that congress has appropriated does not come from some mysterious government money tree.
Yes, the President was happy with the economic surge that came on with his administration. Could there be any President who would not be? But give him some credit for his concern for our country's welfare and his reluctance to put our citizens through this trial. I say thank heavens he's where he is. Would Joe Biden have had the energy and managerial ability to oversee all the medical, economic, logistical, foreign policy and political aspects of this crisis?
I'm a pretty even-tempered guy but this New York Times article makes me angry. For 3 years the President's enemies have subjected him to every harassment they can conceive of. Fair enough, that's politics although pretty darn intense. But the ongoing attempt to undermine his every word and action during this national crisis, which affects every race and gender, Democrat and Republican, is not right. It even leaves me with the feeling that some critics would like to see things go bad just to turn people against him and defeat him in the coming election. I hope not. But then didn't so-called comedian Bill Maher say that he hoped we would have a depression so we could get rid of Trump.
Well Bill. Here's your depression. How do you like it?
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