. . . from his hospital bed in Walter Reed and, via chopper, headed back to the White House.
I suppose if you're going to head a religion, you may as well go the whole nine yards with metaphor and optics.
It turned out, as early as my last entry was written, I got most things right. Hope Hicks was, predictably, not likely to have been the source of the president's positivity. As soon as her positive diagnosis became public, I figured the president was already infected. I was correct. Hicks was willing to fall on her sword for Trump, but then more positives occurred, the super spreader event at the Rose Garden was uncovered, and the first wave of lies went to hell.
Think about the sleazy narrative that President Trump tried to sell. Hicks had, he stated, been touching and hugging and talking closely with first responders and folks in the military. That was undoubtedly the source of her infection. And she was the likely source of the president's positive. Yeah, that was the ticket.
Until, of course, it was not. Instead, it was a GOP event flouting CDC and task force recommendations. Flouting really isn't a strong enough word. Thumbing its nose at CDC and task force recommendations is more accurate.
So now we have a medicinally gooned up president telling people to not let Covid-19 dominate their lives, even as he gasps for air while an array of pharmaceuticals unavailable to the public courses through his veins. Vice-President Pence, meanwhile, should be in quarantine. Instead he wants to appear at tomorrow night's scheduled debate. Chris Christie checks himself into a hospital after his positive diagnosis. Perhaps he could use a pep talk from the president so he could head home and not allow the virus to dominate his life.
Reality versus the GOP. Guess who's winning?
The interesting aspect to come will be watching the president deal with Covid-19 on a daily basis for the next few weeks. As a 74-year-old in terrible physical shape despite being an avid lover of golf and Spanx, he is going to have to shoot a bunch of videos today or tomorrow so he can distribute them in the weeks ahead as the steroids wear off and he feels like hell.
Sixty-five million people voted for this guy. The same guy who routinely called into tabloids and radio shows to anonymously tout his own sex life. The guy who bankrupted four casinos. The dude who was involved in two lawsuits a week for more than 30 years. And nobody vetted his finances or his dependence on Russian oligarchs backing a bank.
If this was and is our process for choosing leaders in this country, Americans got the president we deserved. To paraphrase Dean Wormer in Animal House, "Fat, stupid, and drunk on hubris is no way to go through life, Americans." The United States has four weeks to slim down, smarten up, and get humble.
The clock is ticking.
Bob Dietz
October 6, 2020
