Sing a Song of Sick Pence

With COVID-19 going full tilt boogie in the South and West, the White House's COVID-19 task force felt it necessary to have a news briefing yesterday, the first in two months,Missing was Donald Trump, who proposed his infamous "disinjectant" cure for the virus at the earlier briefing.

Vice President Mike Pence, in effort to put a positive spin on the COVID crisis, praised Trump for showing bold an effective leadership early on in the pandemic and cited as evidence the progress made by states like New York and New Jersey (wait a minute - don't they have Democratic governors who openly defied Trump?), as well as other states like Connecticut and New Orleans (wait - isn't New Orleans a city in Louisiana?), and went on to talk about the robust economic recovery taking place (with 13 percent unemployment?).   Yeah, we're doing so well, the European Union might ban Americans from entering their countries.  

Pence dodged and weaved questions about social distancing and wearing masks in public, and he was, tellingly, the only member of the COVID-19 task force who doffed his mask to speak but did not put it back on after speaking.  He defended Trump's recent rallies, citing the right of people to peaceably assemble without addressing the rallies' violations of Centers for Disease Control guidelines.  It's worth noting that when Pence started speaking, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, down at about 600 points, recovered a bit, going up to about 510 points or so below the previous close.  Once the media dissected and disemboweled Pence's remarks, however, the Dow reversed course and closes yesterday at 730 points down.

If Pence was trying to help Trump regain the initiative on the pandemic and bruise Joe Biden a bit, he failed spectacularly.

Is there any positive news from the task force briefing that isn't a lie? Yes.  Dr. Anthony Fauci, who has been walking a fine line between leveling with the American people and not selling himself out to Trump, said that the virus could be contained and eventually extinguished if Americans do everything within their power to fight it, with a COVID-19 vaccine, which could be available within a year, being "the nail in the coffin" of the pandemic.

Pence's happy talk, meanwhile, was another nail in the coffin of Trump's - and Pence's own - political carer.