Takes issue with letter praising the President
To no one’s surprise, I take issue with several statements in Nan B. Lott’s letter in the December 20th Dispatch, most pointedly — although not only – with her giving President Trump for his “leadership” in the development of the vaccines for Covid-19. Despite her welcome efforts to spread the credit around, I think she short-changes the scientists involved thereby implicitly handing the acclaim they deserve to the President instead.
More to the point, why should the President be given credit for doing what you would expect any president to do under similar circumstances? Can you imagine any modern President not providing public support to vaccine development in the wake of a pandemic? President Trump, as far as I can tell, did little else besides not get in the way of the science (at least as far as vaccine development is concerned). Perhaps if Mr. Trump had been present at a coronavirus task force meeting more recently than May of this year he would actually deserve more of the credit Ms. Lott wants to give him.
In addition, over the past few days reports have surfaced of meetings in the Oval Office attended by not only the increasingly unstable Rudy Giuliani, but fringe lawyer Sidney Powell (didn’t Trump just distance himself from her 2 weeks ago?), and QAnon/conspiracy theory champion, Marjorie Taylor Greene. They are reported to have discussed such anti-democratic maneuvers as seizing the voting machines and declaring martial law to repeat the presidential election — but both in swing states only. Add that to consistent reports that various Trump administration officials are working to disrupt the Biden transition team including hampering Biden’s ability to learn about the massive Russian hack of 6 key federal agencies and Trump’s recent tweets attacking not only Mitch McConnell but Vice-president Pence to make you consistently wonder what will happen next to destabilize the country.
As of now these latter reports require more substantiation but I do wonder if Ms. Lott has heard them and, if she has, how she feels about President Trump now.
Paul Mack
Columbus
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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