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The willfulness of an undisciplined child was on full display this afternoon in the visage of a president out parading around his hospital grounds in a black Suburban for the sake of a photo op when he should have been in bed conserving his energy to better fight the virus assaulting his body. Apparently, his minimization of the virus now extends to his personal experience in having fallen ill to it. This behavior is just one more reminder that the country needs a leader who is capable of assuming adult responsibilities and not one who surrenders to his impulses on the slightest whim.

This act was irresponsible on multiple levels: It spoke to a flagrant and continuing disregard for the health and safety of the Secret Service officers in his protection detail; it undoubtedly took place against medical advice, thus complicating his chances for a complete and speedy recovery; it further jeopardized his ability to remain sufficiently fit to govern; it added to the uncertainty gripping the nation concerning the true state of his condition and hence, his ability to govern, while adding to already extant doubts about the mechanics of a transfer of power, should that become necessary in the event he were to become totally incapacitated.

In short, it is the desperate act of a man who sees his chances of pulling off the greatest con job of his vainglorious career literally slipping through his fingers with each minute his campaign hopes remain sidelined by—irony of ironies— a “hoax” of a virus that should have, by his telling, “miraculously” disappeared months ago.

A more balanced individual might have been reasonably expected to demonstrate a greater appreciation at this point for the deadly import of the virus, after having a direct and personal encounter with it. But this man, a total stranger to reason, common sense and good judgment and apparently incapable of learning from his experiences, is, as we have seen, not someone for whom the term “balanced” is a fitting descriptor.  

That the true significance of such “presidential” displays continues to elude his MAGA crowd is a source of unending perplexity to this observer.

Tim Konrad

October 4, 2020