Public health, policing, the New York Times, Mitt Romney, Donald Trump, Herman Munster, and more.
Public health, policing, the New York Times, Mitt Romney, Donald Trump, Herman Munster, and more
I n my Impromptus last Friday, I said that David Frum had framed something neatly. Framed what? Well, he had tweeted out a picture of a mass demonstration, held in Amsterdam, in response to the police brutality in Minneapolis. David said, “So we’re conducting a vast global experiment on whether social distancing is still necessary. Stay tuned for the result.”
Yes.
In Politico, Tina Nguyen had an interesting article, headed “Conservatives charge liberals with social-distancing hypocrisy.” The subheading read, “They say liberals have stopped scolding protesters for violating social-distancing guidelines for political expediency.”
How can visits to dying parents and grandparents — to be dramatic about it — be irresponsible and reckless, and mass demonstrations, in response to police brutality or whatever horror, be kosher?
Another article in Politico — by Dan Diamond — quoted an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins, who tweeted, “We should always evaluate the risks and benefits of efforts to control the virus. In this moment the public health risks of not protesting to demand an end to systemic racism greatly exceed the harms of the virus.”
Good gracious.
Back to Tina Nguyen, who writes, “Nichols said the danger was that public health officials would be tuned out.”
Nichols? That would be Tom Nichols, the international-affairs scholar and political writer. “I’m worried that this is going to be viewed as the politicization of expertise,” he told Politico. “You can’t say, ‘Listen to the science and keep your churches at 25 percent occupancy and socially distance your choir singers,’ and then say, ‘but thousands of people pressed together in a giant mass while screaming is worth the risk.’”
Well put.
In the last couple of weeks, we have seen a sifting, a separating out: between those who take social distancing seriously and those who take it — well, rather less so. One who is serious is Anthony Fauci. As National Review’s John McCormack pointed out, Fauci said, “The congregation of large crowds . . . is a perfect set-up for further spread of the virus.”
Fauci has struck me as solid, in multiple ways. Way back in 1988, during a presidential debate, Vice President George Bush cited Fauci as a hero of our times. (I noted this in an Impromptus in March.)
• Let me recommend a report by Bernard Condon and Todd Richmond, of the Associated Press. It is hard to read — the subject is painful — but it is very interesting, and instructive. I’ll quote the first paragraph:
Minneapolis was among several cities that had policies on the books requiring police officers to intervene to stop colleagues from using unreasonable force, but that didn’t save George Floyd, and law enforcement experts say such rules will always run up against entrenched police culture and the fear of being ostracized and branded a “rat.”
Yes.
Have a little more:
Power dynamics may have been magnified in the Floyd case because two of the four officers involved were rookies and the most senior officer on the scene was a training officer, Derek Chauvin, a 19-year police veteran who was seen putting his knee on the back of the black man’s neck despite his cries that he couldn’t breathe.
Chauvin was supposed to be training the rookies. They were required to call him “sir.”
Another tidbit or two from this article? One of the officers on the scene was of Hmong descent, and another — one of the rookies — was black.
What a horrid case, and you wonder how many other such cases play out, un-video’d.
• Another AP report, this one by John Rogers and headed “Bloodied store manager describes life in the age of COVID-1.” The accompanying picture, of this woman with blood streaked down her face, says a lot.
Let me quote just the first two paragraphs:
For weeks Samantha Clarke calmly listened to the insults and threats directed daily at her and her employees by people who learned they couldn’t enter the Modesto, California, store without wearing a mask and following other coronavirus-related rules.
But never, says the 17-year veteran of retail sales, did she expect she’d be sucker-punched and left with blood gushing from her battered face. Not until it happened recently after a customer was told the last above-ground swimming pool in stock had just been sold to someone else.
It can be miserable to work with the public — I have long known that. But it should not be this miserable.
• The New York Times published an op-ed piece by Senator Tom Cotton, the Arkansas Republican. There was a furor at the Times. A staff revolt. (I wrote a little about this here.) In short order, a top editor resigned, and another was reassigned. (For a news story, go here.)
There are many things to say. This, for example: Episodes such as Cottongate at the Times will make the media more cautious — not in a careful way but in a fearful way. And there is too much caution in journalism and not enough boldness. In the same vein, there is too much politics — I mean, political behavior, rather than journalistic behavior.
You know the phrase “without fear or favor”? It is meaningful.
In 1896, Adolph S. Ochs took control of the Times and made a statement — a statement published on the editorial page of his paper:
It will be my earnest aim that THE NEW-YORK TIMES give the news, all the news, in concise and attractive form, in language that is parliamentary in good society, and give it as early, if not earlier, than it can be learned through any other reliable medium; to give the news impartially, without fear or favor, regardless of party, sect, or interests involved; to make the columns of THE NEW-YORK TIMES a forum for the consideration of all questions of public importance, and to that end to invite intelligent discussion from all shades of opinion.
Sounds good.
• My old colleague here at National Review, Dan Foster, jotted a tweet, and I appreciated it a lot:
Maybe this is a result of growing up poor, but to me, trying to get someone fired — really trying to make someone unemployable — is a uniquely shitty, evil thing to do. I honestly can’t fathom wanting to *take somebody’s career*, even someone I hated. It is a declaration of war.
Dan followed it up with this:
To me, for example, beating the shit out of someone would be less contemptible than trying to see to it that they can’t ever pay their mortgage.
• Michelle Boorstein of the Washington Post tweeted a picture and said, “Mitt Romney, marching down Penn Ave towards the White House, with about 1000 mostly evangelical protesters. They’re chanting ‘black lives matter!’ and singing ‘This little light of mine.’”
“This Little Light o’ Mine” is one of the great spirituals, and my favorite arrangement of it is by Margaret Bonds. Leontyne Price, the great soprano from Laurel, Miss., sang it on many of her recitals — usually as an encore. She always told the audience that “This Little Light o’ Mine” was her mother’s favorite spiritual.
Here is ’tyne, in her last recital at Carnegie Hall, 1991.
• President Trump reacted to Romney with a sarcastic tweet: “Tremendous sincerity, what a guy. Hard to believe, with this kind of political talent, his numbers would ‘tank’ so badly in Utah!”
In my observation, Trump never takes on Romney at the level of argument. Instead, he says, in some fashion, “I’m more popular than you.”
Quite possibly, the two outstanding villains for the Republican Party today are Mitt Romney and James Mattis. What is it about them that sets off Trump & Co.? My suspicion is that it is honor. (The same was true of John McCain, a third villain, of course.) Trump & Co. call this honor “sanctimony,” among other things.
Anyway, something to ponder . . .
• Like Sr., Donald Trump Jr. responded to Romney on Twitter: “Mitt RINOmney won’t be endorsing Trump, as if @realDonaldTrump or any other republican candidate would give a shit.”
I had never seen “RINO” inserted into Romney’s name. How long have the Trumps been Republicans? A lot less long than the Romneys, right? I remember, sometime after 2012, seeing Paul Ryan’s name written “Paul Ryano.” Get it? “Paul RINO”?
Tough crowd, those R’s can be.
• Trump (Sr.) tweeted, “I built the greatest economy in the World, the best the U.S. has ever had. I am doing it again!” Not so long ago, Republicans would have risen in chorus and said, “You didn’t build that!”
Good times . . .
• Kurt Thomas, the famous gymnast, died. His obit in the New York Times is here. I would like to make a language note. The obit says, “Thomas played on a newly formed gymnastics team at his high school and won a scholarship to Indiana State University in Terre Haute.”
Do you “play” on a gymnastics team? A question I had never considered.
Thomas was a BMOC at ISU — but not as big as one other athlete: a basketball player. (Bird.)
• Last week, a clip from an old sitcom made the rounds, warming my heart. “Straight into my veins,” as they say in social media. It showed Herman Munster, in 1965, telling his son about diversity and toleration. It doesn’t matter what you look like, says Herman. “What does matter is the size of your heart and the strength of your character.”
Sing it, Herman.
Later.
If you’d like to receive Impromptus by e-mail — links to new columns — write to jnordlinger@nationalreview.com.