Washington Post sports columnist Sally Jenkins let fly Saturday morning with a thunderous literary salvo on President Trump over his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Her assault was highly personal and dismissive of the White House's Thursday announcement of a cautious, three-stage recovery plan.
Jenkins (seen in a 2017 file photo taken at the National Press Club, right) tore into people implying that some may have to die to save the economy. How about offering testing and basic protections, she said:
"The sentiment has been mouthed by every fool from Dr. Oz to the Cheetos-dusted flimflam man in the Oval Office: Rather than damage the economy further, we must accept a certain number of coronavirus casualties so the rest of us can go back to restaurants and football games. It’s a false moral equation and a false choice. And the people putting it forward smack of panic."
This approach places the "cart of dead bodies ahead of the horse," Jenkins writes. "Why should citizenry be urged to sacrificially rush back into potentially infectious situations — which in sports means clustering in close quarters such as locker rooms, weight rooms, dormitories and cafeterias — without adequate information from testing, and enough protective equipment?" Again, she turns the attack on the president:
"If fighting the coronavirus is a war, as President Trump has said, then returning to work without a coherent system to isolate and reduce new outbreaks is like sending soldiers into battle without decent weaponry or even a compass.
“ 'Just run out there with no bullets or vests or helmets or maps, for the good of your country.' ”
"What is this, World War I?" Jenkins asks, joining with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in questioning Trump's leadership on COVID-19:
"The crudity of the White House’s response to the virus resembles nothing so much as that lousy war — rudimentary, unskilled, disorganized waste with needless carnage, led by a vain martinet kaiser with extravagant hair who never set foot in a trench. 'He does nothing,' New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) charged Friday. 'He walks at the head of a parade.' ”
President Trump, Jenkins alleges, is bucking the medical community and bipartisan policy experts calling for broad national testing for the virus and for antibodies in order to avoid devastating second and third waves. Escaping Jenkins' attention is the fact that the U.S. has tested twice as many people for the coronavirus (3.6 million) as the runner-up country, Russia (1.8 million). Only four nations in the world have tested as many as 1 million citizens.
The Post writer argues Trump doesn’t want to face the political responsibility of a tough project that requires massive resourcing and coordination. "Instead, Trump is pushing for piecemeal re-openings and is including sports leaders in his discussions because 'we have to get our sports back' and he’s tired of baseball reruns. You want to talk about death by despair? How about having to do this all over again next year?"
Jenkins' harsh blistering of the president is at odds with a report by Associated Press writers Zeke Miller, Alan Suderman and Kevin Freking, carried by U.S. News & World Report. They credited the president with giving governors a road map Thursday "for recovering from the economic pain of the coronavirus pandemic, laying out 'a phased and deliberate approach' to restoring normal activity in places that have strong testing and are seeing a decrease in COVID-19 cases."
The AP report quotes President Trump saying Thursday, “We’re starting our life again. We’re starting rejuvenation of our economy again. This is a gradual process.”
This hardly confirms Jenkins' Washington Post-style hysterics.
The roadmap seeks to ease restrictions in areas with low transmission of the coronavirus, while holding the line in harder-hit locations, AP's story goes. "They make clear that the return to normalcy will be a far longer process than Trump initially envisioned, with federal officials warning that some social distancing measures may need to remain in place through the end of the year to prevent a new outbreak. And they largely reinforce plans already in the works by governors, who have primary responsibility for public health in their states."
