Opinion: Mitch McConnell goes after the wrong president
at George W. Bush after the former president called for national unity to combat the pandemic: “He was nowhere to be found in speaking up against the greatest Hoax in American history!”at an Asian American reporter, Weijia Jiang of CBS News, who asked him a general question about his focus on the United States’ supposedly superior testing numbers — only to be greeted with an unmistakable jab at her ethnicity: “Maybe that’s a question you should ask China.
McConnell is correct in noting that it has been customary in recent years for former presidents not to explicitly criticize their successors. “Generally former presidents just don’t do that,” he said. Obama himself, reentering the political fray in advance of the 2018 midterms, said “intent on following a wise American tradition of ex-presidents gracefully exiting the political stage.”But nothing about this president is customary, and his egregious behavior in office amply justifies a departure from the norm. By one count, Trump has tweeted well over 400 attacks on Obama during his presidency. In the face of those juvenile provocations, Obama didn’t respond in kind.That made sense.
But there are moments that cry out for a presidential voice — the voice of a real president, with moral authority and dignity. Moments such as Charlottesville, when the sitting president praised “very fine people on both sides.” Moments such as the sitting president’s that four nonwhite Democratic congresswomen should “go back” to “the crime infested places from which they came.”
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