Saturday, April 4, 2020

Armchair Quarterbacking


Duplicitous armchair quarterbacks use the benefit of hindsight to pretend they knew months ago just how bad the Wuhan virus was going to be.


Hindsight, as they say, is 20/20.  If we knew in December what we know today, there is no doubt that our response to the Wuhan virus would have been different.  But we didn’t know then what we know now.  And all the armchair quarterbacking in the world doesn’t change that.

The present-day data cannot benefit the past.

But apparently the news media, the Democrats in Congress – not to mention the King of armchair quarterbacking himself Joe Biden — don’t realize that.

Suddenly all the same folks who either ignored, downplayed or dismissed the epidemic in China back in January (and February) are acting as if they knew all along just how bad it was.  They all knew.

All of them.

Except President Trump.

I saw this tweet last night, and boy, does it sum it up succinctly.





Biden has been doing a lot of armchair quarterbacking over the last couple of weeks.

Why, just ask him!

He’ll tell you how seriously he took the threat all the way back in January!



Naturally, all the Big Brain ideas from this armchair quarterback were things President Trump was already doing.

 BUT THAT’S NOT THE POINT!

He knew since the beginning! He knew in JANUARY!!!

Um. Okay, Mr. Senile. Care to explain this?


Armchair quarterbacking with in-you-face Joe


Hindsight is 20/20.  Fact is, Joe didn’t know. None of us did.

And all these claims of prescience from these idiots is nothing but armchair quarterbacking.

But as I said, he’s not the only one.

While President Trump was suspending travel from China, enacting quarantines for Americans returning from overseas, establishing a Wuhan virus task force, declaring a public health emergency, what was Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi doing?

Well, in addition to pushing impeachment, even in late February, Nancy wasn’t taking the Wuhan virus seriously.

Instead, she was in Chinatown urging folks to get on out and have some fun.



Of course now, Nancy Pelosi is doing a bit of armchair quarterbacking herself.





I chronicled a lot of NYC’s foot-dragging and foolishness in my post “Golly, I wonder why New York City is the epicenter.” But Tom Elliott from Grabien did me one better — putting it all together in one super-cut video:





And today, with the benefit of current knowledge and experience, those same people are busy armchair quarterbacking, criticizing the President’s early response while pretending they knew all along just how bad it was.

These are not serious people.

Same goes for the media.

Someone, I know not who, put together all the headlines where the news media downplayed or dismissed the seriousness of the Wuhan virus.


Armchair quarterbacking media


Of course now, these same outlets are shrieking “Why wasn’t more done?!!!!!”

Because we didn’t have the benefit of present knowledge and experience.

Hindsight is useless in dealing with the present pandemic.

At the time, we could only go off what China revealed.  And they were working very hard at keeping the truth from the world. As I said yesterday, the truth was the only thing China managed to contain. It certainly doesn’t help that the World Health Organization credulously parroted China’s claims.

Fact is, now, today, we know that travel from China should’ve been shut down earlier than it was.  But we didn’t know that in January.

And even when President Trump did shut down travel, China, the World Health Organization and these armchair quarterbacks excoriated him for it.

Including Biden.





Including Pelosi.





These guys aren’t just armchair quarterbacking; they’re trying to rewrite history.

Rather than accept the fact that China’s unwillingness to be forthright and honest about this virus from the get-go hampered our ability to act as quickly as we should, they’re pretending that they all knew from the beginning – all of them.  Except President Trump.

What nonsense.

Yesterday in a column titled “The Real Coronavirus Chronology Shows Trump Was On Top Of It While Biden Was Mocking The Danger,” the Federalist’s Cleta Mitchell goes date-by-date exposing these armchair quarterbacking rewriters of history for the liars they are.  It’s well worth a read.

She closes with this:

The single most important step taken by President Trump was his closing of U.S. travel with China, which happened on Jan. 31, something the president reminds us at every briefing.

 He’s right, but what he doesn’t say is he made that decision at a time the CDC was assuring us the risk to America was low, the WHO was covering for China, Democrats were trying to impeach the president, and Biden was attacking the decision as xenophobic.

 It is impossible to overestimate the number of American lives saved by that momentous decision by President Trump on January 31. And no media or Pelosi false narratives or phony Biden campaign ad can change the truth about the real chronology of the coronavirus.

The news media, the Democrats in Congress, that hapless old cooter in his Delaware bunker — these are craven and cynical people.

And they are exploiting this pandemic for political gain.

Your health, your safety, your economic stability – none of that matters to them.

They will shift their positions like a leaf on the wind to whatever is politically advantageous to them.

Nothing is off the table.

They will lie, obfuscate and rewrite history to get what they want.

Fortunately for us, we have a President who will not let them get away with it.

Then again, neither should we.



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