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> I could see how someone could get the impression he said it was coming Sunday evening The media (and many, many commenters here) were foaming at the mouth fo

> I could see how someone could get the impression he said it was coming Sunday evening The media (and many, many commenters here) were foaming at the mouth for another ORANGE MAN BAD story. It's amusing to watch all the frantic spinning taking place in this comments section to avoid walking back the ORANGE MAN BAD narrative from this morning. You were wrong, guys. Just admit it. It won't kill you. I am no particular fan of Donald Trump (to put it mildly), but I think he's been doing a reasonable job on this specific issue, especially when judged by the (admittedly very low) historical standards of federal government responsiveness and timeliness. But then I'm old enough to remember when the previous administration wasn't able to deploy a functional web site to sell standardized health insurance policies, even when given several hundred million dollars and a couple of years of lead time.

Turing_Machine 7y ago
Mod it down all you want. You'll still be wrong.
- jshevek 7y ago
  This kind of follow up comment doesn't help.
throwaway894345 7y ago
(I didn’t downvote you). I actually think this is the one time the media’s criticism isn’t hyperbolic (Trump always merits criticism, but somehow the media takes it to ridiculous extremes). I don’t think Trump is the frothing racist he’s made out to be (although I’m sure he has all sorts of subconscious biases), but he is an idiot narcissist with a national crisis on his hands and he seems to be handling it miserably. Why didn’t we have testing in place sooner? Even if you pin the blame on the CDC, why weren’t there remediation plans announced publicly/immediately? Why is there still no word about how we will manage the crisis when it hits? What of ordering more ventilators and other necessary equipment or scaling up hospital capacity? What of containment measures to slow the spread? How are we going to ramp up testing (I’m grateful for the Roche test deal but who knows if Trump was even aware of or involved in it)? This isn’t leadership even by the crudest standard, and people will die as a consequence. To his credit, he’s working with “Google” to make the website and that’s not nothing, but there’s still a lot to be done and he gives no impression of proactivity or even merely reacting to what is already happening in other countries. I don’t want to be in the middle of the crisis hearing him shift the blame onto the Obama administration when there’s plenty he could have done or plenty he could be doing to mitigate.
- RickJWagner 7y ago
  I think POTUS is doing well. I listened to the Sunday shows this morning, administrative people calmly explained what's happening on the medical and economic fronts. Congress, to it's great credit, cooperated and got a good relief measure done quickly. Things are going about as well as can be expected, I think.
jasonlotito 7y ago
Here is my issue. I take what he says, and assume it’s not true. This works over and over again. T works so well, I default to this for everything he says. It makes things much easier to understand. Unless something gets fact checked as true, this serves me well. I didn’t start like this, but this is where I am. And I haven’t run into a situation where it wouldn’t have served me well. Sometimes, I trust what he is saying. It has always proven to be worse for me to have done this. Say what you want, but this is far worse than a web site that isn’t 100% on day one and designed by law. That site has worked for a long time, but the actions taken on this misinformation is permanent. And as well as you think he’s done, he’s made it worse. Through policy decisions to calling it a hoax, he’s worked hard to make it as bad as possible without doing nothing. When people are discussing where people can find food because they didn’t stock up enough and grocery stores are sold out, that’s pretty unreal. A hoax doesn’t go to something real in less than a week. This is crazy. You hear orange man bad. Yeah, that’s because he legitimately is doing a bad job. Your standards are just in the dumpster. And honestly, don’t blame you. That’s where is actions belong.

Turing_Machine 7y ago

Mod it down all you want. You'll still be wrong.

jshevek 7y ago
This kind of follow up comment doesn't help.

throwaway894345 7y ago

(I didn’t downvote you). I actually think this is the one time the media’s criticism isn’t hyperbolic (Trump always merits criticism, but somehow the media takes it to ridiculous extremes). I don’t think Trump is the frothing racist he’s made out to be (although I’m sure he has all sorts of subconscious biases), but he is an idiot narcissist with a national crisis on his hands and he seems to be handling it miserably. Why didn’t we have testing in place sooner? Even if you pin the blame on the CDC, why weren’t there remediation plans announced publicly/immediately? Why is there still no word about how we will manage the crisis when it hits? What of ordering more ventilators and other necessary equipment or scaling up hospital capacity? What of containment measures to slow the spread? How are we going to ramp up testing (I’m grateful for the Roche test deal but who knows if Trump was even aware of or involved in it)? This isn’t leadership even by the crudest standard, and people will die as a consequence. To his credit, he’s working with “Google” to make the website and that’s not nothing, but there’s still a lot to be done and he gives no impression of proactivity or even merely reacting to what is already happening in other countries. I don’t want to be in the middle of the crisis hearing him shift the blame onto the Obama administration when there’s plenty he could have done or plenty he could be doing to mitigate.

RickJWagner 7y ago
I think POTUS is doing well. I listened to the Sunday shows this morning, administrative people calmly explained what's happening on the medical and economic fronts. Congress, to it's great credit, cooperated and got a good relief measure done quickly. Things are going about as well as can be expected, I think.

jasonlotito 7y ago

Here is my issue. I take what he says, and assume it’s not true. This works over and over again. T works so well, I default to this for everything he says. It makes things much easier to understand. Unless something gets fact checked as true, this serves me well. I didn’t start like this, but this is where I am. And I haven’t run into a situation where it wouldn’t have served me well. Sometimes, I trust what he is saying. It has always proven to be worse for me to have done this. Say what you want, but this is far worse than a web site that isn’t 100% on day one and designed by law. That site has worked for a long time, but the actions taken on this misinformation is permanent. And as well as you think he’s done, he’s made it worse. Through policy decisions to calling it a hoax, he’s worked hard to make it as bad as possible without doing nothing. When people are discussing where people can find food because they didn’t stock up enough and grocery stores are sold out, that’s pretty unreal. A hoax doesn’t go to something real in less than a week. This is crazy. You hear orange man bad. Yeah, that’s because he legitimately is doing a bad job. Your standards are just in the dumpster. And honestly, don’t blame you. That’s where is actions belong.