Bizarrely, Chuck Todd took a moment on MTP Daily on September 11 to mourn that we don’t have the same national unity and resolve today that we did after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. This came about ten minutes after he opened the show by saying the virus takes a 9/11 death toll every week, and that President Trump is irresponsibly downplaying the threat. Chuck is just Captain Unity.
CHUCK TODD: And as we remember that terrible moment in American history 19 years ago, it's important to remember that we are in the midst of another terrible moment in American history. The coronavirus pandemic has taken the lives of nearly 200,000 Americans this year. In fact, our nation has not seen a week where the coronavirus death toll was fewer than 3,000, i.e. 9/11, since the end of March. To put it glumly, we are losing more Americans every few days to this virus than we lost in 9/11 entirely.
And it just isn't that the president is not appropriately acknowledging the gravity of the growing death toll and the virus. He's also still downplaying the severity of the virus. According to excerpts of recordings published by The Washington Post, the president told Bob Woodward in March that he knowingly downplayed the coronavirus risk to avoid creating a panic, he said. And like I said the president who thrives on creating panic is still downplaying the risk. Last night he held a rally in Michigan. Very little social distancing and masking. Flouting Michigan's coronavirus rules. And here's what he had to say about the pandemic.
TRUMP: By the way, I think the vaccine's going to come very soon. Going to come very soon. And with it or without it, we're rounding the turn. You see what's happening. You see the numbers are plunging. We had to take a pause to get rid of the China virus. And we got rid of it. We're getting rid -- we're coming around. We're coming around that turn. I'm telling you, you watch, next year, better than last year.
TODD: Well – obviously, we're not coming around.
Over video of Joe Biden in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, Chuck Todd talked with retired Adm. James Stavridis -- once considered as a potential running mate for Hillary Clinton. Stavridis mourned that people don't have the same national spirit as we did after 9/11. Todd returned to bashing, ahem, "our leadership."
TODD: It also, though, frankly, is a stark reminder of how poorly we've handled collectively as a country, and our leadership in particular, has handled this pandemic. You know, we've had to think that we do so much to pay so much respect to this moment, to those that have lost loved ones, and to think what we haven't done for the hundreds of thousands of family members who have victims of this pandemic. I mean, we have not had the same spirit to go after this pandemic as we did to go after those terrorists.
“That is entirely true,” chimed in Stavridis.
This is the kind of pompous editorializing that makes people angry. What has Chuck Todd done to stop the pandemic, other than kvetch like a partisan on television?
[Hat tip: Ken Shepherd]
