Cal Thomas - Hatchet jobs and pointed questions

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Thursday, September 17th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. WORLD Commentator Cal Thomas now on the need for some pointed questions in the upcoming presidential debates.

CAL THOMAS, COMMENTATOR: When I heard that President Trump sat for 18 interviews with Bob Woodward of The Washington Post my first reaction was, why?

Maybe the president thought he could persuade the man to like him. The evidence that Woodward, along with his Watergate partner Carl Bernstein, ever “liked” a Republican president is thin to nonexistent.

The president now claims Woodward conducted a “political hit job” on him. Why would he have expected anything else?

As to the content of the interviews, Woodward got almost nothing. 

But predictably, Democrats are trying to turn the interviews and Woodward’s forthcoming book, Rage, to their advantage. The problem for them is that they said little or nothing about the coronavirus early on and many took positions opposite the president’s. They now claim they were ahead of the pandemic curve.

Those with short memories should be reminded that New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio urged people on March 11 to eat out and visit movie theaters, just weeks before the city became ground zero for the virus.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi visited Chinatown on February 24 where she urged people to patronize shops and restaurants, in spite of growing fears about the virus.

Joe Biden opposed the president’s order banning travel to China. He has also claimed to have “sounded the alarm” about the virus in January, which various fact-checkers have noted is not true.

As the Trump-Pence campaign has noted, Biden held “dozens and dozens of events in January and February” and never mentioned social distancing, personal protection equipment, ventilators, the need for temporary hospitals, or travel restrictions.

It’s one thing to re-write history, it’s quite another to make it up.

Dr. Anthony Fauci denied allegations by some Democrats that the president distorted his warnings. It was Fauci who initially played down the seriousness of the virus because, as he later explained, he wanted frontline medical workers to acquire protective gear ahead of the general public.

I eagerly await the presidential debates. Chris Wallace will host the first one on September 29, if it happens. I hope he will hold both Biden and the president accountable for their misstatements, factual errors, and memory lapses.

The virus should never have been politicized. As many have noted it does not discriminate between political parties or candidates. Now that it has become political, like everything else, it is fair to ask those who wish to maintain, or obtain power, why the public should trust either candidate to deal with it going forward.

I’m Cal Thomas.

(AP Photo/Evan Vucci) President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference at the White House, Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2020, in Washington. 

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