QOTD -- A Response As Perfect As "The Call"

Former Reagan/ Bush/ Bush official Peter Wehner covers the epic display of incompetence in nitwit narcissist Donald "Moron Vector" Trump's coronavirus response and concludes:

Taken together, this is a massive failure in leadership that stems from a massive defect in character. Trump is such a habitual liar that he is incapable of being honest, even when being honest would serve his interests. He is so impulsive, shortsighted, and undisciplined that he is unable to plan or even think beyond the moment. He is such a divisive and polarizing figure that he long ago lost the ability to unite the nation under any circumstances and for any cause. And he is so narcissistic and unreflective that he is completely incapable of learning from his mistakes. The president’s disordered personality makes him as ill-equipped to deal with a crisis as any president has ever been. With few exceptions, what Trump has said is not just useless; it is downright injurious.

The nation is recognizing this, treating him as a bystander “as school superintendents, sports commissioners, college presidents, governors and business owners across the country take it upon themselves to shut down much of American life without clear guidance from the president,” in the words of Peter Baker and Maggie Haberman of The New York Times.

Donald Trump is shrinking before our eyes.

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Alexandra Petri on Trump's shambolic speech Wednesday:

On Wednesday, the president sat behind the Resolute Desk and addressed the nation with soothing and accurate words about the coronavirus. Unfortunately none of the accurate things he said were soothing, and none of the soothing things he said were accurate.

What do you need at a moment of crisis? Maybe you would like to feel that someone competent is in charge of things. Maybe you would like to see reassuring evidence that the president is capable of delivering a prepared statement that contains no obvious errors about how the country is responding to the crisis at hand. Or maybe you would like instead to hear from Donald Trump. On the plus side, we got to enjoy little Trump touches, like leveling xenophobic insults against the “foreign virus” — if only this were a good American virus, reared on our native soil, which, if placed under a microscope, would be seen to be waving a tiny flag! — and continuous sniffling. [snip]

Trump informed Americans that, out of an abundance of caution, he would be canceling all travel to the United States from Europe, but not immediately, and not including Britain! Starting Friday. And also cargo. Correction: Actually, the cargo was still coming, and also, American citizens and permanent residents could come back from Europe. Trump also said that coronavirus care co-pays would be covered by insurance. Correction: They will not be. In other words, he said, everything is under control. Correction: It is not!

This was just the kind of thing that was needed to soothe the markets, which were too high. They are now lower, which is much more relaxing for them.

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Petri again on yesterday's Rose Garden attempted do- over:

The president seemed a little worried about the job he was doing, so on Friday at 3 p.m., he gathered a close group of older individuals to share multiple handshakes and a microphone that everyone was touching to reassure him that the coronavirus was under control.

President Trump began the speech by reassuring himself. “When you compare what we’ve done to other areas of the world, it’s . . . it’s pretty incredible,” he said, which I think was intended to be positive and not to refer to the fact that the United States lags wildly behind other countries in terms of testing for the virus.

Then he declared a national emergency over the coronavirus. “Two very big words,” he commented. I realize that this is only the 85th-most-concerning part of this strange ad-lib, but — “national” and ”emergency” are only medium-sized words! ”Floccinaucinihilipilification“ — now that is a very big word! I am going, as usual, to take the president seriously but not literally, something that makes times of crisis even more confusing than they would be ordinarily.

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Moron Vector, when asked at the same Rose Garden attempted do- over if he bore any responsibility for the delay in producing testing kits (spoiler alert: he does), offers a fitting epigram for his time in office:

“I don’t take responsibility at all.”

But her emails!

BONUS:  Even as Moron Vector's lies from the Wednesday speech had to be walked back, he was still lying at the Rose Garden attempted do-over, this time about that Google web site.

(Photo:  The non- essential Moron Vector, who has likely been exposed multiple times to the virus, fondling the mic from which the essential Dr. Anthony Fauci is about to speak - photo by Jabin Botsford/WaPo.)