[Genuine Realist]

So, JFK deserves no credit for getting a man to the moon by the end of the decade.  It was the scientists.  And it was all planned by the staff.

Not at all similar. I think it is pretty safe to say the American public was already convinced that we wanted to get rid of COVID-19. I think it is equally safe to say that almost nobody in the USA really wanted or expected to reach the moon by the end of the decade. Nobody cared. Kennedy made them care, and sold the idea to the public (and eventually to Congress). That wasn't easy at all. For that he deserves lots of credit.

That said, it was the scientists and even more importantly the engineers that made it happen, and probably they do in fact deserve most of the credit. However, if the program hadn't had inspiring leadership at the beginning, it would have never happened. Operation Warp Speed didn't require any of that. The public was already sold. Not doing anything would have been politically much more difficult.

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I give Trump credit because it is hard to play the alternative history of what some other President would have done.  Trump's defenders keep saying that nobody else could have done better managing the pandemic, which I disagree with.  There's no way of knowing what the alternative would have been like, and the bottom line is that it happened, and Trump was president.


BC

Agree it happened and Trump was president. I don't assign any merit to that fact. COVID-19 also happened and Trump was president. I don't assign any blame to that fact. I do understand your point that an alternative history can't be evaluated. In my personal rating system (YMMV), Trump gets almost no credit for the vaccine development because 1) Companies worldwide were trying to do it anyway in many different countries and 2) I don't believe Trump actually had the idea himself or needed to expend any political capital to make it happen. I can't give anybody a LOM for that.

It's obviously way too early to write history here.  The story of the vaccine will be a fascinating one when it appears. I hope to live to read it.

I'm glad Trump is gone, and his behavior these last six weeks has been so god-awful one is reluctant to give him credit for anything. Still, the fact is he bet his Presidency on being able to deliver a vaccine before Election Day, and lost by about three weeks. In fact, he might not have lost at all if he weren't so personally obnoxious. Pfizer and Moderna were close enough to have put out favorable press before the election, but chose not to. They don't like him very much. Neither do I.

That said, he was not a bad chief executive, apart from the horrible personal style, and his administration did have its achievements. He almost certainly deserves some credit. How much? Wait five years and we may find out. One thing for sure, Joe Biden, who is a practical politician, is going to take all the credit offered to him. He's no fool.

[Genuine Realist]

So, JFK deserves no credit for getting a man to the moon by the end of the decade.  It was the scientists.  And it was all planned by the staff.

Not at all similar. I think it is pretty safe to say the American public was already convinced that we wanted to get rid of COVID-19. I think it is equally safe to say that almost nobody in the USA really wanted or expected to reach the moon by the end of the decade. Nobody cared. Kennedy made them care, and sold the idea to the public (and eventually to Congress). That wasn't easy at all. For that he deserves lots of credit.

That said, it was the scientists and even more importantly the engineers that made it happen, and probably they do in fact deserve most of the credit. However, if the program hadn't had inspiring leadership at the beginning, it would have never happened. Operation Warp Speed didn't require any of that. The public was already sold. Not doing anything would have been politically much more difficult.

---

I give Trump credit because it is hard to play the alternative history of what some other President would have done.  Trump's defenders keep saying that nobody else could have done better managing the pandemic, which I disagree with.  There's no way of knowing what the alternative would have been like, and the bottom line is that it happened, and Trump was president.


BC

Agree it happened and Trump was president. I don't assign any merit to that fact. COVID-19 also happened and Trump was president. I don't assign any blame to that fact. I do understand your point that an alternative history can't be evaluated. In my personal rating system (YMMV), Trump gets almost no credit for the vaccine development because 1) Companies worldwide were trying to do it anyway in many different countries and 2) I don't believe Trump actually had the idea himself or needed to expend any political capital to make it happen. I can't give anybody a LOM for that.

It's obviously way too early to write history here.  The story of the vaccine will be a fascinating one when it appears. I hope to live to read it.

I'm glad Trump is gone, and his behavior these last six weeks has been so god-awful one is reluctant to give him credit for anything. Still, the fact is he bet his Presidency on being able to deliver a vaccine before Election Day, and lost by about three weeks. In fact, he might not have lost at all if he weren't so personally obnoxious. Pfizer and Moderna were close enough to have put out favorable press before the election, but chose not to. They don't like him very much. Neither do I.

That said, he was not a bad chief executive, apart from the horrible personal style, and his administration did have its achievements. He almost certainly deserves some credit. How much? Wait five years and we may find out. One thing for sure, Joe Biden, who is a practical politician, is going to take all the credit offered to him. He's no fool.