You could show an old Yankee that guy from 50 feet away, and they'd ask "Is there another way we could go around? I'd just as soon not!" "He don't fit the picture!....."

Revisiting Mike Pence's unfortunate Memorial Day prediction
Pence said the crisis would be "behind us" by Memorial Day weekend. His failed prediction is emblematic of a larger problem.

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/revisiting-mike-pence-s-unfortunate-memorial-
day-prediction-n1214711?cid=sm_npd_ms_tw_ma

May 26, 2020, 9:44 AM CDT

By Steve Benen

<snip>

"I truly do believe that if we all continue to do that kind of social distancing and other guidance broadly from federal and state officials, that we're going to put this coronavirus in the past," Pence said on Geraldo Rivera's radio show Friday. "I believe by early June we're going to see our nation largely past this epidemic.... I think honestly, if you look at the trends today, that I think by Memorial Day weekend we will have this coronavirus epidemic behind us," he added.

Even at the time, this was a difficult assessment to take seriously. Finding a credible public-health expert who believed the crisis would be "behind us" by this point was effectively impossible, and yet, the vice president -- the official ostensibly leading the official White House coronavirus task force before its demise -- took this message to a national broadcast audience anyway.

Now that Memorial Day weekend has come and gone, and the crisis is obviously not "behind us," we now know that the public-health authorities were right and the Indiana Republican was not.

The goal here is not to point and laugh at Pence for peddling misguided happy talk. Rather, what I think matters is that Team Trump keeps taking unrealistic predictions to the public with little chance of success.

The administration keeps making extravagant, unrealistic promises and predictions. Whether it's that the death toll would drop to zero by the end of March, or that it would be all over by Memorial Day, or we'll have a vaccine by the end of the year (though the administration concedes the vaccine might not be safe or effective, which are two prerequisites for calling something a vaccine). It's good to remember just how catastrophically and consistently wrong the administration has been.

Also, the media don't have to cover administration pronouncements as if it were their first run at an answer. They have a track record, and it's horrible. Lethally horrible. They should have, by now, squandered the benefit of any reasonable doubt. Don't report their self-serving nonsense as if it's worthy of consideration. You know they're just blowing smoke when they peddle some pleasing lie that makes them look good. Call it like it is.

Like Trump, Pence just makes up his lies as he needs them.

Too bad it's not one of the important commandments.