The inauguration is over; President Biden has signed a flurry of executive orders, had a few cabinet appointments approved, and the Senate has negotiated a small delay in taking up the Trump impeachment—hopefully allowing Biden to complete his cabinet.
Dr. Fauci is back in front of the cameras, with renewed vigor and occasionally a small smile. He made a kind of apology for previous imperfect statements—he had not wanted to directly contradict President Trump. Smiled now remembering his distressed look in the background as Trump promoted hydroxychloroquine. Fauci says that we can now expect talk and action reflecting the best that science and medical advice can give us.
Fauci does predict a continuing high coronavirus death toll—3,000-4,000 per day—even as the number of new cases declines. Others on Biden’s health team are trying to get a handle on vaccine distribution, still touting the goal of 100 million vaccinations in the first 100 days.
This, it seems to me, is a hard critical promise that the new administration can and must make good on. Meeting it will have the practical effect of reducing transmission, and the social/political/psychological impact of keeping the promise. Biden has told his staff that they need ambitious but doable goals, and they need to fess up if and when they don’t meet them.
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Baseball’s Hank Aaron died yesterday. I’ve watched homerun number 715 replayed a dozen times on the news. Number 715 broke the legendary Babe Ruth’s record for career homeruns, and spawned a year of hate mail and death threats as Aaron, a black man, approached Ruth’s record.
Aaron was raised in Alabama, started in the Negro leagues at 17, and played a couple of seasons of white minor league ball in the Deep South. Jim Crow was strong and Aaron often couldn’t eat or stay in hotels with white teammates. He went to the major league Milwaukie Braves in 1954. When the Braves moved to Atlanta in 1965, Aaron was concerned about living and playing in the South again. So he talked with Martin Luther King and Ralph Abernathy, and they told him his work was as important as theirs; he should play ball and be a black leader in Atlanta. He promised—and held to that promise with grace through death threats and the Civil Rights years.
Promises are promises, and hard promises met move us ahead.
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