Azar AWOL

Since James Mattis resigned as Secretary of Defense, I couldn't imagine a Democratic successor to Donald Trump asking any of his Cabinet members to stay on, but I did not think it was out of the question that Health Human Services Secretary Alex Azar - whose biggest redeeming quality was that he isn't Tom Price - would at least be asked to run the show at HHS a little while longer until President-elect Joe Biden's choice for Azar's successor, Xavier Becerra, is confirmed.  Azar (below) seemed to be an upstanding sort of guy, having already served as a deputy HHS secretary in the George W. Bush administration and thus knowing a thing or two about his job.  And that's important in a pandemic.

Nothing could have prepared me for what was just reported about the vaccines, which blew my take on Azar out of the water and into the stratosphere.  President-elect Biden said he would release doses of the COVID-19 vaccines from the reserve supply rather than save them for second doses in order to get as many people first-dose vaccines as possible and count on continued vaccine production for second doses.  Then Trump announced that he'd go ahead and do that, which took some of the decision-making on COVID out of Biden's hands.  And then came the big bombshell.

There is no reserve supply of vaccines!  They made it up!

That's it.  There was clearly no one in the Trump White House not given the surname Mattis by their fathers who was 100% qualified for their positions.  Even Rex Tillerson, whom I liked, remember, wasn't skilled in running the State Department despite his clear and sensible positions on foreign policy.  But at least Uncle Rex wasn't privy to a lie that may cost lives like Azar was.

Trump and his HHS department screwed up COVID testing and COVID tracing, and the vaccine was our last hope at getting the virus under control.  Then came this news.  Three strikes and you're out.

Azar has already made official his resignation effective January 20, but it's obvious that he should have left months earlier.

Although, I have to give some sort of prize to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson for serving the full time of Trump's term.  How about a candy bar or a lollipop? 😛