Sunlight Is The Best Disinfectant
The FDA makes the right call on pausing the Johnson and Johnson vaccine; Nikki Haley shows her true colors; and looking back at the assassination of America's greatest president.
What’s Going On?
President Biden announced his intention to withdraw all US troops from Afganistan by September 11, 2021. As a long-time critic of US military engagement in Afghanistan, I think this is the right decision, but, admittedly, I’m torn. From a national security perspective, there is no good reason to remain in Afghanistan. The threat of that country again becoming a safe haven for terrorists is incredibly remote. Even if it occurred, it still wouldn’t represent a serious threat to the United States. But from a human rights perspective, a US withdrawal increases the likelihood that the Taliban will reestablish their political control. It’s highly debatable that the US could bring about a better outcome after 20 years of fighting. Still, we shouldn’t delude ourselves into believing that our departure won’t potentially lead to a terrible outcome for the country.
Bernie Madoff is dead .. and I will adhere to the rule of “if you can’t saying anything nice about someone, don’t say it.”
The Minnesota police officer who shot Duante Wright allegedly mistakenly firing her gun rather than her taser was charged with manslaughter.
I’m going to write more on this issue soon, but it’s increasingly clear that outdoor transmission of the coronavirus is not a thing. We’ve reached the point, with more than a third of the country partially vaccinated, to begin the practice of no longer wearing masks outside.
Hope Trautwein, a Division 1 softball pitcher at the University of North Texas, pitched a perfect, perfect game - 21 up, 21 strikeouts.
Today in History
On this day in 1865, President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. This eyewitness account from the New York Times is riveting.
“It was not till 22 minutes past 7 o'clock in the morning that the flame flickered out. There was no apparent suffering, no convulsive action, no rattling of the throat, none of the ordinary premonitory symptoms of death. Death, in this case, was a mere cessation of breathing.
“The fact had not been ascertained one minute when Dr. GURLEY offered up a prayer. The few persons in the room were all profoundly effected. The President's eyes after death were not, particularly the right one, entirely closed. I closed them myself with my fingers, and one of the surgeons brought pennies and placed them on the eyes, and subsequently substituted for them silver half-dollars. In a very short time, the jaw commenced slightly falling, although the body was still warm. I called attention to this and had it immediately tied up with a pocket handkerchief. The expression immediately after death was purely negative, but in fifteen minutes here came over the mouth, the nostrils, and the chin, a smile that seemed almost an effort of life. I had never seen upon the President's face an expression more genial and pleasing. The body grew cold very gradually, and I left the room before it had entirely stiffened. Curtains had been previously drawn down by the Secretary of War.”
Lincoln’s death is one of the great tragedies of American history, in large part, because the man who replaced him as president, Andrew Johnson, was an unmitigated failure who completely screwed up Reconstruction. The United States would have likely become a very different and far freer country if Lincoln had lived.
The FDA Makes the Right Call
First, the good news: approximately 122 million Americans have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. On average, 3.38 million people are being vaccinated daily.
Now the bad news:
Injections of Johnson & Johnson’s coronavirus vaccine came to a sudden halt across the country on Tuesday after federal health agencies called for a pause in the vaccine’s use as they examine a rare blood-clotting disorder that emerged in six recipients.
All six were women between the ages of 18 and 48, and all developed the illness within one to three weeks of vaccination. One woman in Virginia died, and a second woman in Nebraska has been hospitalized in critical condition.
The FDA’s decision to pause vaccines raised an outcry on social media as commentators noted that 6 illnesses out of 7 million are infinitesimal. The far greater public health risk is not vaccinating Americans against COVID-19. Critics complained that pausing vaccines would encourage vaccine hesitancy and confirm the false assumptions of those who don’t want to get the shot.
I sympathize with these arguments, but they largely miss the point. The FDA, unquestionably, made the right decision to pause J&J vaccines, and it is just as likely to reassure Americans about the vaccine as it is to convince them not to take it.
First of all, there are six reported cases of blood clotting associated with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. There could be many more that we don’t know about yet. Second, as the Times reports today, the pause “will give officials more time to alert doctors that patients who have these rare blood clots should not be given the drug heparin, the standard treatment that doctors administer for typical clots, and also provide time to determine whether there are any more cases.”
Taking this step could save the lives of those adversely affected.
Lastly, what choice did public health officials have? Imagine the response if the FDA had kept the public in the dark about potential, albeit rare, side effects to the vaccine - and people died as a result. It’s hard to think of a more effective tool for undermining public confidence in COVID-19 vaccines and the statements of public health officials than if they had been caught covering this information up. Transparency is essential, even if it means putting out negative information or delaying vaccinations for a few days. By being upfront about the clotting issue and using an abundance of caution, the FDA may actually increase public confidence and minimize vaccine hesitancy.
It’s not as if Americans are not aware that there are multiple vaccines out there. The first question you ask after you get the vaccine is generally, “Pfizer, Moderna, or Johnson & Johnson.” Will this dissuade some Americans from getting the J&J vaccine? Perhaps. Will it convince others who were on the fence not to get the shot at all? Maybe. But I have little doubt that the response to a lack of transparency from the FDA would have been far worse, particularly after a year in which the last administration regularly lied to the American people about the impact of coronavirus.
I will note the irony that I co-wrote a book two years ago that argued Americans overreact to potential overseas threats and should be more willing to accept risk. I still largely believe that, but this is far less an example of overreaction and far more an example of getting the messaging on vaccines correct. The FDA handled this situation exactly as it should have.
When Narcissism Meets Cowardice
Last February, Politico ran a major profile of former US Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, in which she had some harsh words for the former president - and her former boss - Donald Trump.
"We need to acknowledge he let us down,” Haley told reporter Tim Alberta. “He went down a path he shouldn't have, and we shouldn't have followed him, and we shouldn't have listened to him. And we can't let that ever happen again."
When asked if Trump would seek the presidency again, Haley said she thought “he’s not going to run for federal office again.” And if he does? “I don’t think he’s going to be in the picture,” she said, matter-of-factly. “I don’t think he can. He’s fallen so far.”
That was then. This is now.
According to Haley, who is considered a likely candidate for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination and clearly thinks that she has the political chops to be president, “I would not run if President Trump ran.”
If Haley believes, as she claimed just a few months ago, that Trump took the GOP down a path “he shouldn’t have,” and it was wrong to listen to him and to follow him, why would she refuse to oppose him for the GOP nomination in 2024? Why would she so willingly embrace a political leader who lost reelection by more than 7 million votes and cost the GOP control of the Senate - and two years earlier cost Republicans control of the House of Representatives? The more important question, which I doubt Haley has spent much time thinking over, is how can she step aside for a candidate who literally sparked an insurrection?
The obvious answer to all these questions is that Haley is a coward. She knows that Trump is deeply popular within the party and that if she opposed him, not only would she likely lose, but she would risk dooming her chances of winning the party nomination down the road. She has clearly calculated that it is better to risk Trump doing more damage to the party and the country than to stand up to him and risk undermining her own political ambitions. This, of course, is precisely how Republicans got stuck with Trump in the first place - by deciding that they couldn’t risk their political futures to draw a line in the sand. Now that Haley has staked out this position, I would imagine that other Republican presidential aspirants will follow suit and concede the nomination to Trump if he wants it.
I’m usually one to dismiss the famous aphorism by Spanish philosopher George Santayana that “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” because we often learn the wrong lessons from the past. But when it comes to the modern incarnation of the Republican Party, old George hit that nail on the head.
Musical Interlude
On Monday I got my second vaccine shot!
Nothing beats a doubleshot …
… or a Shot in the Arm
As a fan Steve Nieve, I gotta love the Farfisa organ on "Double Shot of My Baby's Love," especially since it seems to predate "96 Tears" by a few years.
Your analysis of the FDA's decision misses an obvious alternative: They could have alerted the public, and studied the question, while continuing to administer the vaccine in the interim.