facebook-pixel

Letter: A Trump-era tongue-twister

(Alex Brandon | AP) In this March 26, 2020 file photo, President Donald Trump speaks about the coronavirus in the James Brady Briefing Room, in Washington. Trump on Friday, March 27, invoked the Defense Production Act after claiming that General Motors wasn't moving fast enough to make much-needed ventilators in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Yet experts on managing factory production say GM is already making an extraordinary effort for a company that normally isn't in the business of building ventilators.

When I was young, we kids would play with the following tongue-twister: “How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?”

Now, decades later, we’re led by a president who in a time of national crisis invents tall tales such as “the coronavirus is very much under control in the USA,” and “we have a perfectly coordinated and fine-tuned plan at the White House for our attack on coronavirus.” Dozens of similar doozies have been documented by masochistic scribes.

Such fabrications suggest a new tongue-twister for today’s youth: “How many tales can a tall-tale teller tell when a tall-tale teller tells tall tales?”

Tom Huckin, Salt Lake City

Submit a letter to the editor