"WHO The F**k Are YOU?"

Donald Trump announced this past week that the United States is now withholding funds to the World Health Organization (WHO) in the midst of the worst pandemic in over a hundred years.  The only people who approve of this policy are Trump's sycophants, which, I'm sorry to say, include the entire Republican congressional caucus.

Trump's rationale for withhold funds from the WHO is based on is failure to stop the coronavirus from spreading beyond China and taking Chinese assurances of the virus's containment at face value.  Shortly after Trump's announcement, the media started playing clips of Trump from January and February praising the WHO and Chinese President Xi Jinping for their leadership on the virus problem.

It is true that the WHO put too much trust and not enough verification - a spin on Ronald Reagan's favorite Russian proverb, "Trust but verify" - in the Chinese leadership, as Kathy Gilsinan's article in The Atlantic explains.  The WHO was impressed with China's efforts to handle the crisis, even though Chinese coronavirus policy was based largely on wishful thinking and spin.  But the WHO also recognized the severity of the disease and, regardless of how it was going down in China, warned the rest of the world to prepare for a global health emergency.  Trump sort of didn't want to do that.  Now that the United States has the largest umber of coronavirus cases, he's trying to deflect blame to others.  Some government officials overseeing health policy conceded that the WHO made some serious mistakes but caution - their cautions falling of deaf ears, of course - that we should wait until after the pandemic has run its course to assess those mistakes.    

Trump's lack of consistency on many issues - he was once for fighting climate change before he was against it - is annoying even in normal circumstances, but here it's gone beyond the pale.  When he was downplaying the health crisis, he wasn't even consistent with  the WHO while he was praising the organization; he declined the tests it offered to the United States when this disease got serious.  Even if you accept the idea that the WHO let COVID-19 go full tilt boogie, the Chinese still deceived the WHO into making decisions based on unreliable information.  Blaming the WHO for the pandemic is like blaming Eve for the fall of man, even though the serpent in this case is the Chinese Politburo.

A rather loaded analogy, and an ironic one to use a week after Easter, I know, but if the shoe fits . . .