HHS Secretary Alex Azar Rode In To Save The Day. For Everybody Except Trump, That Is.

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You know, if somebody with some real juice, I dunno, say God maybe, told me I could live my life over, I think that this time I would enroll in medical school. Only by being a board certified proctologist would make finally seeing a perfect asshole even that much more special.

And to my untutored eye, Alex Azar is pretty much a perfect asshole. I know why the White House sent him out there today, on Meet The Press with Chuck Todd. On the surface at least, Azar comes across as calm, measured, professional, and qualified, unlike most Trump appointees, who look like they just got off of a park bench after a three hour nap. But then Azar had to go and open his mouth, and spoil the whole goddamned thing.

Azar spent the entire interview with a smarmy, sarcastic, holier-than-thou attitude. His snoot was stuck so high in the air that Prince Charles immediately signed up with him for lessons in proboscis elevating. Personally, if I want a derisive ass chewing, I’ll go in and see my boss. From a medical professional, I’d like a bedside manner a little more like Marcus Welby, and a little less like Madame DeFarge.

I’ll give him credit, Chuck Todd really tried. But unlike most Trump acolytes and surrogates, Azar appears capable of maintaining a laser focus on his predetermined messaging. Todd tried the time honored tactic of probing from different angles, and even expressed frustration where called for, but Azar was not about to be knocked off of his game by the likes of Chuck Todd.

Todd asked Azar about the sudden spike in cases in the southern and southwestern states, and Azar explained, expressing surprise that these spikes seemed to be driven by the under 35 age demographic. I cannot conceive of how these brainless twits continue to be gobsmacked by this fact when it has been on the daily demographics chart for two weeks now! Hell, I’ve even written about it, and how far ahead of the curve can be, fer Crissakes?!? But Azar blew out a handful of pixie dust by saying that, while positive cases and hospitalizations were up, thankfully ICU and death totals were down. But to me, that’s a bitter ray of sunshine, since not enough time has elapsed for the gestation of the virus to catch those numbers up to the spike level yet.

But even when he was pressed, and admitted that the under 35 demographic was largely responsible for the spikes, he failed to lead. Todd gave him a perfect opening, but Azar flat out refused to counsel that anyone under the age of 35, who had placed themselves into a situation of possible contact, whether confirmed infected or not, should maintain social distancing protocols concerning contact with higher risk groups, say like Mommy and Daddy, or the grandparents. After all, we wouldn’t want Mom and Pops to think the little bastards didn’t love them, right?

Todd also hit Azar like a hammer on the administrations pathetic performance on contact tracing, which, along with social distancing and maximum testing have long been the CDC’s Holy Trinity for beating back the virus. And that’s where Azar went into full Nuh-uh, don’t look at me, not my problem mode. He immediately launched onto a long monologue about how.

Contact tracing is, by its nature, a community effort. And every single time that HHS has received a request from a local, county, or state entity requesting assistance, we have immediately passed that information on to FEMA, which has surged the necessary resources out to the requesting agency. To which my immediate reply would have been, oh yeah, what? Green plastic garbage bag ponchos with no arm holes in them for PPE equipment? Just another reason why I’ll never be a network Sunday morning talk show host.

But Todd was at his best, and Azar at his worst, when Chuck brought up Trump’s messaging. Todd asked Azar why Trump couldn’t bring himself to wear a mask in public, or at least call for everybody to wear one. Azar responded to that question like a cat with a pot of boiling water, The administration guidelines, fully endorsed by the administration, explicitly call for the use of face coverings in a social situation where social distancing isn’t possible. Chuckles, God love him, didn’t give up, But you’re not the President, and 50% of the country won’t listen to anything unless it comes out of President Trump’s mouth. Why can’t the President just come out and tell everybody to wear masks in public?  To which a clearly pissed off Azar replied, I am the President’s Secretary of Health and Human Services, and I’m here advising everyone to wear a mask in social situations where social distancing is not possible.

The whole exchange reminded me of that scene in Blazing Saddles, where Mel Brooks, as  Governor William J LePeteomaine is berating his cabinet. This is an outrage! This could cost us our phony-baloney jobs! Harumph! Harumph I say! Everybody else present, Harumph! Harumph! Lepetomaine, I didn’t get a Harumph out of that guy! Lamarr, Give the Governor a Harumph!  Staffer, Harumph!!! LePetomaine, You watch your ass around here!

Chuck Todd had one more arrow in his quiver, and he hit the 10 ring with it. He asked Azar about the President making campaign rally appearances in states getting slammed with the coronavirus, and ignoring every CDC guideline to boot.
Azar stumbled badly with something like, Well Chuck, I am not going to politicize public health issues like that. Over the last couple of months there have been any number of largely political mass gatherings. Gatherings, for a whole spectrum of issues. I can’t control that, but I can come on here and advise everybody to take all necessary precautions.

Sweet Jesus, this just keeps getting worse.  And it’s only going to keep getting worse from here on out, because both the administration as well as the moron GOP Governors brazenly stomped all over every common sense measure that was proposed to keep the virus in check. And now the media has all of the ammunition they need to call them out on it every Sunday from now until November. But one small suggestion. Stick Alex Azar back in mothballs, his talents are being wasted here, he’s much too perfect an asshole for this stage. Trot out Ben Carson instead, he can always talk about getting stabbed in the belt buckle. That’s always a crowd pleaser.

To know the future, look to the past.before the insanity of the 2020 election, relive the insanity of the 2016 GOP primary campaign, and the general election, to see how we got to where we are. Copies of President Evil, and the sequel, President Evil II, A Clodwork Orange are available as e-books on Amazon, at the links above. Catch up before the upcoming release of the third book in the trilogy, President Evil III: All The Presidents Fen

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1 COMMENT

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  2. Murf, about this:

    “From a medical professional, I’d like a bedside manner a little more like Marcus Welby, and a little less like Madame DeFarge.”

    While you’re correct about the choice in bedside manner bit, that doesn’t mean bupkus here since Azar is NOT a “medical professional.” He earned a JD at Yale Law School (after earning a BA in “government and economics” at Dartmouth) then served in various legal capacities through the 90s. He served as General Counsel at HHS under Dubya before becoming Deputy Secretary at HHS. After resigning from there in 2007, he went to work as a lobbyist for Eli Lilly before becoming President of the company’s US operations. It was from there that Trump picked him to lead HHS.

    But there’s absolutely nothing in his CV to suggest he’s a “medical professional” by any stretch of the imagination.

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