Voters are likely to hear many speeches at this week's virtual Democratic National Convention that make them believe they are living in an alternate universe, but Monday's address by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo will be hard to top.
The governor of the state that leads the nation in deaths from the COVID-19 virus and is second in deaths per capita had the temerity to criticize the administration of President Donald Trump for its handling of the global pandemic, calling it a "metaphor" for a nation whose "body politic has been weakened."
Asking Cuomo to use the virus to criticize the president is akin to the hens asking the fox to speak on the fox's prowess in guarding the henhouse.
In New York, after all, more than 6,000 people died when the governor essentially ordered nursing homes to accept virus patients from hospital beds, a directive he later rescinded. The number of deaths reportedly could be much larger, but New York, unlike some other states, only counts individuals who died on nursing home property and not if they were transferred to a hospital. And the governor is unwilling to release that number.
In his speech Cuomo even curiously referred to the pandemic as the "European virus," making people wonder why he and other Democrats want to play down the illness's origin and proliferation in China.
As continues to be proven every day, the global pandemic is not something that is scripted. For all the hue and cry on the left about the Trump administration's actions, no epidemiologist, no scientist and no health agency had the playbook on how a new virus was to be handled.
Repeating all the predictions that were made and guidance that was issued by the world's and nation's top health experts, only to have them revised or completely changed, could fill a book.
But let's look at one specific battle in the war - the strange case of hydroxychloroquine - because it won't seem to go away.
In March, Trump tweeted that the drug commonly used to treat malaria and other conditions had the potential to be "one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine" as treatment for coronavirus.
Personally, we would want a president to report any potential breakthroughs in a treatment option. But that's not how the left saw it. They immediately found detractors, who said what the president was saying was dangerous and could have horrible consequences.
In the five months since then, one study after another has found the drug helped, then not helped, then did little, then helped ...
Trump even took a two-week dose of the drug himself in late May.
In recent weeks, a professor of epidemiology at the Yale School of Medicine said a full analysis of the literature shows the drug could be the key in defeating the virus. A veteran virologist and adjunct professor at George Washington University Medical Center said the literature is overwhelming and that "53 studies show positive results of hydroxychloroquine in COVID infections."
The result of such studies is that Minnesota recently became the second state in two weeks to reverse bans on the drug in use for virus patients. That state's governor is Democrat Tim Waltz, who has not commented publicly on his reversal. The state is also the home of U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat who mocked the drug on Twitter and later had to admit her husband had been successfully treated with it.
The point here, though, is not about hydroxychloroquine. We have no independent knowledge of its efficacy and would never suggest anyone take it without talking to a doctor. The point is that much is still unknown about this virus. Presidents, epidemiologists, governors, family doctors and average Joes all are trying to take the information that arrives in their inboxes and interpret it to the best of their abilities.
Trump, Cuomo and other politicians all have made mistakes about the virus precisely because they were doing what they thought best at the time. But Cuomo wants to have it both ways - to hold himself blameless, saying "our way worked in New York," but to say the administration is "incompetent." We believe the American people will have no problem seeing through that.
However, blaming the president for every problem after throwing roadblocks in front of him for three and a half years appears to be the theme that will dominate the Democrats' convention this week. We hope people won't fall for such a ruse because people who do will fall for anything. And that doesn't bode well for the country's future no matter who's in charge.