An old adage says that a stopped clock is right twice a day.
With far less frequency, liberals in the media will admit that Republicans are correct, unless, of course, they vote the way liberals want. (See Cheney, Liz)
Last week the Trump haters at The New York Times admitted that former President Donald Trump deserved to claim a share of the credit for the increasing volume of COIVD-19 vaccines, which are helping drive down the rate of new infections.
Noting the Biden administration’s quest for glory, the Times, under apiece headlined “Biden Got the Vaccine Rollout Humming, With Trump’s Help,” observed, “Beyond the triumphant (Biden) tone, a closer look at the ramp-up offers a more mixed picture, one in which the new administration expanded and bulked up a vaccine production effort whose key elements were in place when Mr. Biden took over for President Donald J. Trump. Both administrations deserve credit, although neither wants to grant much to the other.”
Later in the article, the Times reports, “At the same time, though, Mr. Biden benefited hugely from the waves of vaccine production that the Trump administration had set in motion.”
On Monday, Axios pointed out that Democrats in Florida have been mugged by reality.
“After a solid year of living with a pandemic, the national press is beginning to ask the question that even Democrats have been quietly pondering in the Sunshine State: Was Gov. Ron DeSantis’ pandemic response right for Florida?” Axios reported.
Axios cited a recent report by the Los Angeles Times which desperately tried to defend the record of its governor, who faces a possible recall election. The LA Times noted that California struggled with the virus more than Florida because of “poverty, density, overcrowding and climate” – yes, climate.
But at least the Times found one source willing to give DeSantis some benefit of the doubt.
“If I had to do it again, I’d still do it the way California did it. But I do think you do have to come away with some humility,” Dr. Robert Wachter, chairman of UC San Francisco’s medical school. “One might’ve expected that the Floridas of the world would’ve done tremendously worse than the Californias of the world, and they did worse, but modestly worse, and there’s something to be learned there.”
Meanwhile, on the other coast, The New York Times, on Sunday, reported that doom and gloom are nowhere to be found in Florida.
“To the contrary, much of the state has a boomtown feel, a sense of making up for months of lost time. Realtors cold-knock on doors looking to recruit sellers to the sizzling housing market, in part because New Yorkers and Californians keep moving in. The unemployment rate is 5.1 percent, compared to 9.3 percent in California, 8.7 percent in New York and, 6.9 percent in Texas. That debate about opening schools? It came and went months ago. Children have been in classrooms since the fall,” the NY Times reported.
“More than 32,000 Floridians have died, an unthinkable cost that the state’s leaders rarely acknowledge,” the paper added.
“Yet Florida’s death rate is no worse than the national average and better than that of some other states that imposed more restrictions, despite its large numbers of retirees, young partyers, and tourists. Caseloads and hospitalizations across most of the state are down. The tens of thousands of people who died were in some ways the result of an unspoken grand bargain — the price paid for keeping as many people as possible employed, educated and, some Floridians would argue, sane.”
“For better or worse,” the Times acknowledged, “Florida’s experiment in returning to life-as-it-used-to-be offers a glimpse of what many states are likely to face in the weeks ahead, as they move into the next phase of the pandemic — the part where it starts to be over.”
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