(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

The complaints about Trump’s response are uniform but the criticisms are completely infantile.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy recently sent out a notice that instructed people where they could go for updated information on the outbreak that has dominated the news. ‘’Everything you need to know about the Chinese coronavirus can be found on one, regularly updated website.’’ It was both a vital contact point to what the government is doing, as well as a sound rebuttal to the constant bleating we are served about how the administration is doing little in response.

Recall the narrative that persisted for some time that Donald Trump fumbled because he called the virus a ‘’hoax’’? This was a detail widely repeated among media types, to the point that it became accepted as a fundamental fact of this outbreak story. The curious detail – these ‘’journalists’’ never provided the quotation from the president saying this. That is because he never said those words, but recall the enthusiasm our truth merchants had in repeating this canard.

It has been the patter in the press and with the pols. Nancy Pelosi, in knee-jerk fashion, responded to the minority leader critically. Was there a factual error or some other flaw in the information delivered? Not at all. She instead resorted to a petulant, childish retort as we have seen in recent days that mentioning the point of geographic origin of the virus was somehow racist.

Bigoted statements which spread misinformation and blame Asians and the Asian American community for #coronavirus make us all less safe. @GOPLeader must delete this tweet and apologize immediately. pic.twitter.com/twzCcVAWDH

— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) March 10, 2020

The nation is under a widening cloak of panic in reaction to a building pandemic but instead of aiding the cause and looking to clarify and aid the populace Pelosi is more interested in scoring political points and burnishing her own party’s optics. In much the same way Chuck Schumer took to the Senate floor and delivered a vitriolic rebuke of the president, accusing him and the administration of sloth and stasis, in defiance to the actual activities we have witnessed from the White House.

This has been the regular activity coming from the left; the Democrats have led the anti-Trump cheers for weeks now, and the members of the media have been shaking their pom-poms in time with the hysterics. For Pelosi to criticize our leadership by echoing the desired request not to blame China as made by the Chi-Com government is all the reason to ignore this woman. She is not the least bit interested in providing leadership in this crisis, only desiring to score political points.

There is no better example of Trump being placed in the ”Damned if he does-or-does-not’’ position than on the issue of containment of the virus in regards to foreign travel. In the New York Times Ross douthat speculated how Trump was guilty of an ”underreaction’’ to the outbreak, one that could undermine his entire leadership.

“Trump is in danger of losing his presidency because when the great test came, in the form of a virus carried by global trade routes from Communist China, he didn’t take the danger seriously enough.”

Soon after Trump banned travel from China, and just today he announced stopping all travel from European countries, save for Great Britain. The reaction– Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders declare this once called-for action makes Trump a xenophobe. But were this only blatant contradiction from these leftist elitists on the matter.

One other common complaint from the medical experts in the press has been that the Trump administration was not relying on medical experts to address the scourge. Of course, to say this they needed to ignore the surgeon general appearing on nearly every news program on Sunday to outline the plans of addressing the scourge — and they did indeed ignore him.

But with that complaint being made there has been no shortage of reporters turning to non-medical ‘’experts’’ to get their impressions and opinions of the virus. Take this exchange delivered by Manu Raju–

Asked Pelosi if she thinks Trump should be tested after his interactions with Doug Collins and Matt Gaetz.
Pelosi: “Tested for what?”
me: coronavirus
Pelosi: “Oh, I thought he should be tested for a long time now.”
And she walked off

— Manu Raju (@mkraju) March 9, 2020

Trump needs to only deal with medical professionals, but CNN can ask an untrained politician to diagnose a third-party with no examination, and it is treated as if it is news. This is almost the nadir of sophomoric behavior.

Not wanting to be left out in the wilderness to shout alone Matt Yglesias also weighed in with his attempt to undermine President Trump’s efforts and only extend the anxiety in the public. Is Matt looking to educate and inform? Oh hell no, we need to make the leadership in the country look incompetent, possibly leading to a disaster of unimagined proportions.

https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1238171201681395712?s=20

Thanks, Matty. I’ll say it is a good thing you suffer from male-pattern baldness, as this will reduce your impulse to run through the streets after setting your hair on fire. Given Matt works at Vox, and thus loves explainers, I will allow a good acquaintance and a PR native with family down-island explain to him what actually transpired:

He should ask the governo– oh wait, he resigned due to scandal. Maybe he can ask the CFO– nope, he resigned due to pilfering funds the US allocated for hurricane relief. Oh, he can ask the adj– never mind, they are in jail for withholding aid send by the Trump Admin.

Huh…

— Schadenfreudelish (@aggierican) March 12, 2020

But those are facts, and they interfere with delivering a scathing message of Trump beiing incompetent.

This is what needs to be addressed when analyzing any of this type of media coverage — who are these players seeking to help with their messaging? Are you getting the sense that they are looking to serve the public good, delivering helpful facts to assist you in making informed choices in your personal life to prepare and measure the actual impact of this virus? Or is it a craven attempt to tear down the president and the administration, all in the goal of rendering Trump in preparation for the upcoming election?

That is, are they doing so in service to political power? In almost every example we see the latter is certainly in play. Way to serve the country and the public, you merchants of deception.