Last night I was watching Fox News  (I always watch/listen to the enemy just to keep them closer than my friends) and the banner message that kept running across the bottom of the screen said, “Liberal media cheers that President Trump is sick.”

So this morning, to check out the extent of the liberal cheers being directed at Trump, I read the op-ed that will be posted in tomorrow’s edition of The (‘failing’) New York Times written by our friend Nick Kristof which says exactly the opposite of what Fox News believes the liberal media is saying about Trump and Covid-19.

Nick’s op-ed begins by telling us that we shouldn’t be nasty or snarky just because President Trump is sick. Instead, “Let’s learn from the president’s infection. Let’s make this a wake-up call that leads to mask-wearing and social distancing, saving lives.”

He then concludes his homily in the following way: “So as the Trumps battle the virus, let’s learn lessons, sharpen our wits — and commit ourselves to a lifesaving norm of social distancing and wearing masks.”

This may come as something of a shock to Nick, but maybe because he’s been sitting on the family farm in Oregon perhaps he’s missed a few things. The truth is that I don’t need to learn anything about the virus from Trump falling ill. The only thing I’ll learn if he recovers is that he will receive a level of medical care which most Americans who contract the illness won’t receive thanks to how one, single person has behaved.

Several months ago I came driving home to find my street being repaved. In order to drive down the street, I had to tell the cop who was standing there that I was a resident. So I stopped next to him and because I was alone in my car my mask was on the seat next to me.

I dropped my window and but before I realized anything the cop was leaning over, not wearing a mask, and his face was about a foot away from me. I yelled at him to back off which he didn’t, by the way. I then shot the window closed and drove towards my house.

This incident occurred just before my state’s Governor, Charlie Baker, imposed social distancing statewide. But I had been wearing a mask and staying away from people for at least three or four previous months. And I knew lots of people who were doing the same thing.

But I also saw a lot of people like this cop who weren’t behaving the way they should have behaved. And the reason they weren’t doing what we all need to do is because one fat, stupid and egregious narcissist sitting in the Oval Office has been telling everyone that they don’t have to behave the way they should behave.

I’m not surprised that Trump’s dwindling collection of media allies are going all out to keep him somehow from taking responsibility for the fact that nearly one thousand Americans are still dying from the virus every day. In the entire history of this country, there has never (read: never) been such irresponsible behavior by the guy who sits behind the Resolute desk.

I think it’s not only disingenuous but somewhat alarming when intelligent and well-meaning liberal editorialists like Nick Kristof imply that ‘we’ are somehow all at fault because ‘we’ need to see this virus as some kind of “wake-up call.”

Since early February I have gotten up every morning knowing that I can’t leave my house without a mask. I have also not visited with any of my children or my grandchildren because I know that such visits represent an unacceptable risk. And I’m hardly the only American who has put off seeing their kids.

Sorry Nick, but I don’t need a wake-up call and neither do any of my friends. What we need is a Chief Executive who should be modest and honest enough to accept the blame for pretending that we can just ignore the ‘Chinese flu’ because it will soon ‘go away.’