(04-26-2020 07:20 PM)mrbig Wrote:  I question whether you would have given Obama a B+ in handling the coronavirus if everything had unfolded the same way. I question if you would be so forgiving of Obama making repeated substantive misstatements and lies on the issue. But you are correct that on many things you have noted agreements with Obama or disagreements with Trump, so I honestly and earnestly tip my hat to you on those.

I frankly don't think that Obama or Hilary would have handled it as well as Trump has. Trump got off to a slow start, but so would they have. The big problem up front was lack of testing and that was a CDC/FDA clusterflock. Plus, we don't have people or places to perform widespread testing. So no people, no places, no tests = no testing. And there is absolutely no reason to expect that any of that would have gone better under Obama or Hillary.

I doubt very seriously that Obama or Hillary would have stopped the flights from China, and it would appear that did limit the damage somewhat.

The best move Trump made IMO was getting things out of the exclusive domain of CDC, NIH, and FDA, and getting state, local, and private actors involved in a major way. I have no reason to believe that Obama or Hillary would have done that as fast as Trump did, which was too damn late, but better late than never.

I have stopped watching the daily press conferences, which I understand were not conducted this weekend. Watching the MSM reps try to paly gotcha with Trump and Trump insulting them in return seemed to become a waste of time.

If Obama or Hillary had done exactly what Trump did, I would have the same criticisms of them that I have had of Trump, and I would have given them the same grade. If they had done better, I might have given them A's. If they had done worse, which I would have expected for the reasons given, I would have given them a lower grade.

Things Trump could have done to get a higher grade from me:
1) Mobilized the National Guard at the start and had them set up testing stations, and later construct field hospitals to catch overflows.
2) Overruled CDC and FDA and gotten the WHO test out to the field in time for the Guard to use it, and brought state, local, and private labs in to develop, manufacture, and evaluate tests to increase our capacity. Trump did this eventually. I would have done it much sooner. I think Obama or Hillary would have done it much later, if at all.
3) Considered a one-week shutdown around the first of March, like we did for 9/11. Cancel all international flights, except allow US citizens to return. Shut down the stock exchanges for a week. Huddled with congressional, cabinet, state, local, and private industry leaders to come up with a plan, preferably using teleconferencing to set an example. I would have leaned toward something more like Sweden, but I could have been overruled by the group.