The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

These are hard times in America. The President said we’re at war as he opted to use the Defense Production Act to force industries to start making ventilators and probably hepa-vacuums for Mar-a-Lago. When the going gets tough, the tough talk tough. Kung Flu. Chinavirus. The war will be waged by name calling, apparently.

Someone must have whispered in the President’s ear that the public thought his initial response to the pandemic was pan-anemic. No big deal, the big guy said, just a hoax perpetrated by the media and his enemies on the left. But someone mentioned the tide would turn against him when cadaver carts rolled through American streets collecting the dead so he changed his tune. Asked how he thought he and his administration handled the pandemic, he gave himself a 10. Great Job, Donny! he might as well have crowed, giving himself a pat on those huge padded shoulders. Daily he rolls out ‘the team’, all jostling for camera space despite the admonition to adhere to ‘social distancing’. If any of these folks develop symptoms for kung flu, well, so much for the fireside chats.

Every day we get the updates, rosy scenarios of tests available to everyone soon, tomorrow, pharmaceuticals that appear very promising, ventilators coming immediately … then invariably some expert contradicts the President. No, not tomorrow, sir, no, not very soon at all. Happy talk is great. Over at Fox News the happy talk is non stop. What epidemic? That phony cold?

Meanwhile the economy has ground to a near halt. Planes are grounded, buses run mostly empty, stores are shuttered, restaurants are boarded up, bars don’t open, streets are desolate, cities are ghost towns. Concerts are banned, public gatherings forbidden, borders closed, schools closed down, even funerals are taboo. The stock market keeps going down down down. Trillions will be spent on corporate bailouts, unemployment compensation, tax relief, medical remedies, checks to all of us. Nobody but a self-deluding moron thinks tomorrow will be a better day. Somebody needs to get tested … and not just for the chinavirus.

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