As I savor my first cup of 'joe' this morning, I am still chewing on Cheeto's assertion that he wanted the nation to remain 'calm' so that is why he downplayed the Coronavirus. I guess when there is a picture of your hand in the cookie jar, there are not too many good answers to gain a degree of exoneration.
My short musing this morning is framed by a quote from Abraham Lincoln:
“I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they
can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The
great point is to bring them the real facts.”
– Abraham Lincoln
There is no way in my mind that I can ever believe, under any circumstances, that Cheeto will bring real facts to the table in any meaningful circumstance. His reality is simply that the only facts are those that benefit himself, everything else is false. How sad to live in such a world.
Yesterday, was another anniversary of the tragedy of 9/11, and once again I read the litany of false statements made by Trump to politically capitalize on the event. They range from seeing thousands of Muslims in New Jersey cheering to his modest efforts at helping the cleanup effort a day after the tragedy. It was a reminder, as if any were necessary, of the psyche that exists in the White House where he cannot squeeze out a modicum of truth even for a tragedy like 9/11.
The sad reality is that Cheeto's comments about 9/11 were political pablum designed to squeeze out some political publicity to inflate his ego. His decision to downplay and misrepresent the truth about the Coronavirus resulted in the loss on untold lives of innocent citizens who otherwise may have more aggressively 'met the national crisis had they had the real facts,' to paraphrase Mr. Lincoln. Sadly, on September 12th, we still don't have a national plan to meet the challenge except to hope for a vaccine that many experts say will likely not be available in significant quantities for widespread distribution and implementation until late 2021. In the meantime where is our plan to combat the crisis while we wait for the implementation of a national vaccine program?
It is time to move on to my second cup of coffee this morning accompanied by a fresh cheese bagel.