(Official Washington Examiner editorial, March 12)
More mournful than hopeful. More soporific than energizing. President Biden, in his first prime-time address from the White House, indeed in his first 50 days in the White House, resembled nothing so much as a less youthful Jimmy Carter.
Biden’s wan and listless tone matched the content of his Thursday night address. Biden oversold the danger of the pandemic, undercredited his predecessor, overpraised his own “accomplishments,” and vastly underestimated the public’s sense of how close we are, and must be, to enjoying nearly normal lives.
Of course, this pandemic and the lockdowns have been difficult for all of us. For a not-inconsiderable minority, they have been tragic. Biden, though, couldn’t leave stark facts alone. Instead, he absurdly said we have faced not just “one of the toughest and darkest periods in this nation’s history,” but actually “the darkest we’ve ever known.” The hyperbole is insulting. The Civil War was far darker. World War I followed by the Great Influenza was far worse, especially considering how much smaller the total population was then. The Great Depression followed by World War II provided challenges exponentially more daunting than this nation faced in the past 12 months.
The president also continued his administration’s classless practice of acting as if it inherited a bare cupboard. “Two months ago,” he said, “this country didn’t have nearly enough vaccine supply to vaccinate all or anywhere near all of the American public.”
Well, of course not. Two months before Biden’s speech was just one month after the Food and Drug Administration first issued even “emergency use” approval for any vaccine — a vaccine developed in nearly miraculous time, spurred on by the Operation Warp Speed catalyzed and overseen by former Vice President Mike Pence’s task force. To have even a single vaccine by Inauguration Day was a scientific and administrative wonder….
[The full editorial is at this link.]
