Donald Trump understands that the novel coronavirus is very bad. That alone is a great achievement in accelerated adult education on the part of his advisers. Now, the president has moved on to the more critical question: Who can he blame for this global bummer? He pulled some names from a hat today and — whaddayaknow? — the "winner" is Barack Obama, who has not been president for almost four very long years.

Here's some lie-spiked gibberish punch that Trump served up this morning:

TRUMP: The Obama administration made a decision on [coronavirus] testing that turned out to be very detrimental to what we're doing and we undid that decision a few days ago so that testing can take place in a much more accurate and rapid fashion. That was a decision we disagreed with. I don't think we would've made it. For some reason it was made, but we've undone that decision.

Great, first Obama lies about his birthplace. Now, he's given us all coronavirus, and it wasn't even on our registry. He's diabolical! Why do black people love Obama so much when he's so bad for us? He's like a cheesy casserole washed down with sweet tea.

A reporter performed their "enemy of the people" duties and asked the followup question, "What the hell are you talking about?" Or more politely:

REPORTER: You mentioned an Obama-era rule that you had changed regarding this virus. I didn't follow that.

Trump looked confused. He'd clearly just said OBAMA in the same sentence as "coronavirus." Wasn't that enough to justify opening impeachment proceedings against his predecessor? He turned it over to Mike Pence, his Official White House Patsy And Fall Guy In Charge Of The Coronavirus Response.

TRUMP: Let's talk about that.

LAPDOG: We can talk about ... the last administration. The last administration asserted FDA jurisdiction over testing, and the development of tests like this. The president changed that on Saturday.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is a federal agency of the US Department of Health and Human Services. It is responsible for "protecting the public health by ensuring the safety, efficacy, and security of human and veterinary drugs," among other things rational people would assume makes sense for the FDA to oversee. It's not like Obama put Sasha, or even Jared Kushner, in charge of the testing. And if Trump disagreed with Obama's policy, why didn't he change it immediately, like he's tried to do with almost everything that has Obama's name on it? He's had the time to torch Michelle Obama's school lunch rules. He didn't have to wait until everyone was freaking out like characters in "The Masque of the Red Death."

Trump is desperately parroting a right-wing smear campaign designed to shift blame for his administration's bungling of the coronavirus response. Obama's vice president was Joe Biden, whom Trump might face in the general election. If he can pin the coronavirus on Uncle Joe, that's worth two Ukraines and an impeachment.

Obama, an actual president, competently managed a global outbreak in 2014, despite Republicans and Trump himself being jerks about it.

Trump and John Bolton also canned the White House official in charge of the country's response to a global pandemic. They alsodisbanded the global health security team. I presume those resources were reallocated to making Kushner's android flesh look more lifelike.

During a press conference today, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, Dr. Deborah Birx, discussed sensible precautions we can take during this outbreak, especially if we have to travel on one of those giant petri dishes called "airplanes." She advised washing your hands for at least 20 seconds and with soap (don't just stick two fingers under cold water like my mother always told ... someone). You should also avoid touching your face, and that's when Trump boasted about his own facial caressing celibacy.

TRUMP: I haven't touched my face in weeks, in weeks. I miss it.

I'm not sure why anyone would "miss" that moldy, rotten, diseased pumpkin squatting on his shoulders, but it's not even true that he's avoided touching what passes for his face. He even touched that orange landfill later in the same meeting. Those hands of his get around. He's hardly the master of his domain.

Trump also was telling the idiots at his hate rallies that the coronavirus was the Democrats' "new hoax" less than a week ago. All the while, he apparently knew the virus was serious enough that he struggled to resist the siren call of his own putrid face.

[New York Magazine]

Follow Stephen Robinson on Twitter.

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