Good question.<\/p>\n
I was reading today’s Gail Collins column, “Let’s Call It Trumpvirus,”<\/a> as the preferred way to learn about Trump’s press conference — or whatever that thing was — on the coronavirus.<\/p>\n I can’t listen to him speak — or whatever that thing he does is — because after years of study I have determined that (a) virtually everything he says is a lie, (b) virtually everything he says is founded in ignorance and stupidity and (c) virtually everything he says is incomprehensible anyway.<\/p>\n So I fall gratefully upon Gail Collins to tell me what’s happening with our government’s, uh, plans for dealing with a possible pandemic.<\/p>\n Some selections:<\/p>\n So, our Coronavirus Czar is going to be\u2026 Mike Pence. Feeling more secure?<\/em><\/p>\n Our president had to be going crazy over a problem that involves both declining stock prices and germs…<\/em>Meanwhile, he\u2019s come up with a totally new explanation for the stock market skid. It turns out investors were not frightened so much by the pandemic as the Democratic debate.<\/em><\/p>\n Plus that virus thing is \u2026 not necessarily a big deal. What really \u201cshocked\u201d him, Trump said, was his discovery that \u201cthe flu in our country kills 25,000 people to 69,000 people a year.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n So the problems are the Democrats and the flu. The answers are Mike Pence and \u2026 reminding the public once again that Nancy Pelosi\u2019s district has a big homeless problem.<\/em><\/p>\n The president had been saying everything is totally under control<\/a> for some time. (\u201cIt\u2019s one person coming in from China.\u201d)<\/em><\/p>\n The whole administration picked up the cry. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, 82, overcame his habit of dozing off<\/a> at meetings long enough to tell Fox Business Network<\/a> that the disease would \u201caccelerate the return of jobs\u201d from overseas.<\/em><\/p>\n Trump totally agrees. \u201cWhat it\u2019s gonna do is keep people home, and they\u2019re going to travel to places we have,\u201d he said.<\/em><\/p>\n See? The virus thing is a bonus.<\/em><\/p>\n Read Collins in toto to get her rundown of how Trump’s variety of “acting” administrative figures have grasped what’s going on with the coronavirus. It’ll be illuminating. For instance:<\/p>\n The nation got its first real look at Chad Wolf, the acting homeland security secretary, who appeared before a Senate subcommittee and admitted he had no idea how the virus was transmitted among humans, exactly how dangerous it was, or \u2026 pretty much anything.<\/em><\/p>\n When Senator John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican not known for anti-administration bias, asked whether the country had enough respirators<\/a> to deal with a coronavirus epidemic, Wolf answered in the affirmative.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cWe just heard testimony that we don\u2019t,\u201d Kennedy responded.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cOK,\u201d said Wolf.<\/em><\/p>\n OK, well, I could just copy and paste all of Gail Collins here but that isn’t really what I started to write about. Which was god. Here’s what she wrote that caused me to talk to god:<\/p>\n [Trump] is the guy, after all, who thinks shaking hands is \u201cbarbaric,\u201d who is followed around by aides bearing sanitizer. During his press conference he told the story of a fever-ridden supporter who gave him a hug. It was at that point I found myself muttering to god, “OK, one last chance to prove you exist: Trump gets coronavirus and dies, right? Right?”<\/p>\n I swear right here: if it happens, I will start calling the chief supernatural thingee “God” instead of god.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Good question. I was reading today’s Gail Collins column, “Let’s Call It Trumpvirus,” as the preferred way to learn about Trump’s press conference — or whatever that thing was — on the coronavirus. I can’t listen to him speak — … Continue reading
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