A20 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.SATURDAY, AUGUST 1 , 2020
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR[email protected]S
ENATE REPUBLICANS feigned bewilder-
ment the other day at why the White House
insisted on including $1.75 billion to rebuild
the FBI’s downtown Washington headquar-
ters in the latest pandemic relief bill.
In fact, it’s no secret why President Trump would
want such a thing — just another bit of sleaze oozing
from his administration. As everyone in Congress
knows, the Trump Organization’s financial interests
are heavily entangled in the prospects for the
current FBI site.
A year after he took office, the president inter-
vened personally to kill a plan, a decade in the works,
to transfer the FBI to a campus in the D.C. suburbs.
He did so despite the fact that the plan made
undeniable sense: The FBI’s 46-year-old J. Edgar
Hoover Building, on Pennsylvania Avenue, has been
crumbling for years, accommodates less than half
the bureau’s local staffing needs and is vulnerable to
terrorist attack.But shifting the FBI headquarters to the suburbs
would clear the way for redeveloping its current site,
a prime property ripe for shops, restaurants, high-
end apartments — and a luxury hotel. That luxury
hotel would compete with another one a block away
on Pennsylvania Avenue: the Trump International,
which, in 2018, provided the president’s company
with a substantial chunk of its revenue.
What’s the nation’s hotelier in chief to do?
Following his personal intervention, the govern-
ment announced that rather than moving the FBI, it
would raze the building and rebuild on the same
insecure, too-small site, w hich would force thou-
sands of FBI staffers to move permanently to
facilities in Idaho, Alabama and West Virginia. As for
the cost, including to relocate more than 5,000 FBI
headquarters personnel for years while construc-
tion was underway — well, no one could provide an
estimate of that.
The Trump Organization’s plan to sell its hotel’slease is on hold because of the pandemic, but the sale
will surely be more viable, and the property more
valuable, if the president is successful in eliminating
a potential rival hotel across the street.
Still, GOP senators played dumb when asked why
funding for a new FBI headquarters would be a
priority for the White House in a bill meant for
economic relief from the pandemic’s ravages. “That’s
a big question,” said Sen. Richard C. Shelby of
Alabama, who chairs the Appropriations Commit-
tee. “That makes no sense to me,” said Sen. Lindsey
O. Graham of South Carolina. Senate Majority
Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky was more
blunt; he called it a “mistake” to include the FBI
building in the coronavirus stimulus measure.
In any other administration, self-dealing of this
magnitude would be a scandal for the ages. In the
Trump presidency, it’s just another day. No one can
keep up with the gusher of malfeasance, contempt
for ethics and recklessness.Scandalous self-dealing
Senators pretend not to see Mr. Trump’s transparent hotel gambit.
W
HAT CAUSES a country to succeed, or
fail, in containing covid-19? Israel offers
an example of both. When the novel
coronovirus reached the country in
March, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quick-
ly ordered a border closure and a national shut-
down, then held nightly news conferences to
remind citizens to wear masks and wash their
hands. He forged a coalition government with the
leading opposition party that pledged to focus
almost exclusively on the pandemic for six months.
Infections plummeted, to a low of 10 new cases a
day in mid-May. Mr. Netanyahu’s poll ratings
soared. “So far we’ve done it better than nearly every
other country in the world,” he boasted. The
hubristic prime minister then proceeded to demon-
strate how not to manage the disease. He ordered a
quick reopening of businesses, entertainment and
schools. “We want to make your lives easier, to allow
you to go out and get some air... to drink a cup of
coffee and to have a beer as well,” he told Israelis. “So
first of a ll, enjoy yourselves.”
The predictable result: Israel is now averaging
more than 1,770 new covid-19 infections per day and
ranks fifth in the world on a per capita basis in the
past week, just behind the United States. Mr. Netan-
yahu’s approval rating has fallen from 74 percent to
46 percent, according to one polling organization.
The prime minister’s official residence in Jerusalem
and his home outside Tel Aviv lately have been the
sites of near-nightly demonstrations led by infuriat-
ed young people.
The government particularly erred in its full
opening of schools. Thousands of infections in
students and staff have been recorded, and epidemi-
ological studies have shown that schools contribut-
ed heavily to the overall spike in infections. Thanksimposed by the government this month, including
of gyms, pools and restaurants. For his part,
Mr. Netanyahu has adopted a Trumpian response to
the demonstrations, accusing the young people
outside his residences of “anarchy, violence, vandal-
ism,” even as police blast them with water cannons.
Some clear lessons emerge from Israel’s corona-
virus roller coaster. Firm action and national
leadership can suppress the virus, but rapid
reopenings invite disaster. Sending students back
to school can cause a spike in infections. Above all,
the virus thrives on political disorder: In Israel, as
in the United States, partisanship is fueling the
pandemic.Mr. Netanyahu’s
covid-19 hubris
Cases climb after p olitics erode
Israel’s early pandemic success.ABCDE
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The Washington Post
1301 K St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071 (202) 334-LOCAL OPINIONSJoin the debate at washingtonpost.com/local-opinionsPatrons of D.C. businesses went unnamed in Ike
Brannon’s July 26 Local Opinions essay, “D.C.’s cheap
street parking permits come at a high cost.”
For five years of parking horror in the late 1990s, I
lived on S Street NW. When I was unable to ride
Metro because of work assignments or I had to move
my car to avoid street cleaning parking tickets, my
neighbors were not the problem. My neighborhood
was packed with the cars of patrons of the nearby
restaurants, bars and hotels. I would circle the block,
competing with other drivers, sometimes following
patrons to their cars.
Parking was equally atrocious when I moved to
G Street SW. The neighborhood was crammed with
the cars of baseball fans and Wharf-area patrons.
Parking signs with confusing instructions resulted
in tickets for failure to decipher the posted dictums.Cleaning up residential parking would be great,
but D.C. must also develop effective and efficient
off-street parking for business patrons.
Robert Hainey, D istrict HeightsAs an advisory neighborhood commissioner in
high-density Ward 1, I’m familiar with curbside
parking battles. But it’s not the “mainly wealthy and
white” residents who benefit. We own our homes
and commonly have garages or parking pads for our
cars. It’s our apartment-renting neighbors who
depend on curbside parking. Apartment-renting
residents of modest means for whom a car is not a
luxury but a true need would be most seriously
impacted by higher parking permit fees and, espe-
cially, by a decrease in available on-street parking.
Jack A. McKay, WashingtonD.C.’s parking horrors
to its relatively youthful population, Israel’s morbid-
ity rate has been well below that of the United
States; there had been 512 deaths as of Friday in a
country of 9 million. But hospitals remain under
siege: Four of them, including the country’s largest,
reached their occupancy limit this week.
Unlike President Trump, Mr. Netanyahu has been
willing to admit that he made a mistake in
reopening the economy too soon and accept respon-
sibility for it. But in other respects, Israel’s outbreak
has been fueled by political dysfunction familiar to
the United States. Public health restrictions have
become politicized: A committee of the Knesset, or
parliament, has repeatedly reversed new closuresAHMAD GHARABLI/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
Protesters take part in a demonstration in Jerusalem on Thursday over Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.The July 27 Style article “In N.Y., an ominous
mail-in mess” described numerous ways in which
the system has failed New York voters. In November,
so many voters will be using mailed ballots that
there will surely be errors because of overwhelmed
staff, mistakes by voters, reporting delays and even
intentionally caused problems.
Not everyone can take advantage of the service,
but if you can, early voting, which is available in
Virginia, Maryland and D.C., means no missing or
invalidated signatures, no lost mail, no missing
postmarks and the like. Avoid the dysfunction, and
make sure your ballot counts.
Raoul Drapeau, AshburnEarly voting is the answer
Regarding the July 28 front-page article “Corona-
virus relief talks ramp up as GOP unveils plan”:
The federal government has already spent
$3 trillion and is about to spend $1 trillion more for
coronavirus relief. That is a staggering amount of
money. Wouldn’t it have been far more effective to
have spent way less money on testing and contact
tracing, coupled with mandates for social distanc-
ing and masks in public spaces? Our economy
would be on the upswing, as are Europe’s and
Asia’s.
Instead of doing what works, our politicians
prefer a temporary bandage to reduce economic
pain, but their real motivation is to buy votes with
cash payments.
Robert Slapnik, Chevy ChaseRegarding the July 28 editorial “How to kick
the virus by October”:
This argument could be read as suggesting that
normal is a context in which the population should
pretend it is not living through a pandemic, while
widespread testing, rapid contact tracing and
hot-spot quarantining are ready to intervene when
reality intrudes. Please fully develop all three
interventions.
But much better — surely — would be a situation
in which the vast majority of individuals recognize
reality, minimize their circulation, avoid all crowds
(especially interior crowds), practice safe distanc-
ing, wear a face covering and practice good hygiene
— all intended to protect the most vulnerable
among us. If the vast majority of us would behave
with such temperance, we could reclaim more than
80 percent of our pre-pandemic life — education,
economy and more — by minimizing risk while
optimizing care for each other. We might even
develop some constructive post-pandemic habits.
Philip J. Palin, Stanardsville, Va.Reclaim our pre-pandemic life
Dan Balz’s July 27 front-page article about President
Trump’s “America First” agenda, “World of crises
shows U.S. influence at a low ebb,” offered a great
foreign policy analysis of the situation. As Mr. Balz
noted: “America’s standing in the world is at a low ebb.
Once described as the indispensable nation, the Unit-
ed States is now seen as withdrawn and inward-
l ooking, a reluctant and unreliable partner at a danger-
ous moment for the world.” In contrast to the more
than 70 years of leadership nurtured by every presi-
dent since World War II, Mr. Trump pursued an
isolationist strategy, laced with xenophobia, that effec-
tively devalued American lives and treasure spent to
maintain an order viewed as “good for the world and
good for the United States.” But Mr. Trump’s shift to
pull the United States out of the Paris accord, the Iran
deal and the Trans-Pacific Partnership was just the
start of his inexplicable alienation of allies such as
Germany, France and Britain and his questionable
embrace of enemies such as Russia, China and North
Korea. Mr. Trump weaponized tariffs for trade deals,
family separations for immigration control and merce-
nary fees for a defense partnership.
The president’s misguided vision has taken Ameri-
ca’s eyes off the ball.
Dale Pappas, BethesdaMr. Trump’s withdrawal doctrine
Regarding the July 23 news article “House votes to
remove statues and bust from Capitol”:
Though I’d rather Confederate monuments remain
with signs that express a truer version of history, I have
a question for proponents of saving the statues: Why, if
statues are about heritage, not hate, are there so few
statues of Gen. James Longstreet?
He was Gen. Robert E. Lee’s most effective com-
mander, the only Confederate general to win battles in
the Eastern and Western theaters of the Civil War. If
Lee had listened, he would have led the South to victory
at Gettysburg. Longstreet served as U.S. marshal and
ambassador to the Ottoman Empire after the war.
Yet only in 1998 was a statue to Longstreet erected at
Gettysburg, apparently the only one anywhere in the
United States, although at least four Southern states
could claim him as a native son.
If the South’s statues were truly about history and
heritage, rather than hate from the Jim Crow era,
Longstreet would be honored in Virginia, Tennessee,
Georgia and Louisiana — all places he lived and fought.
But Lee’s “old war horse” told the truth when the “Lost
Cause” and “states’ rights” myths began to sugarcoat
horror: “I never heard of any other cause of the...
[Civil War] than slavery.”
Willing to admit his mistake, the general did what
was right after the war. As militia commander in
Louisiana, Longstreet stood up and literally fought for
the rights of freedmen.
Randy Salzman, CharlottesvilleA rebel who reformed
Regarding the July 28 Metro article “Witness casts
doubt on Lafayette Square claims”:
Something’s not making sense. If there was an
“unprecedented and sustained nature of... violence
and destruction” in the immediate surroundings of
the White House, as acting Park Police chief Gregory
Monahan was quoted as saying, then why on earth
would the best security forces in the world have
allowed the president, his family and top officials to
enter the scene within 30 minutes of it all — for a
campaign photo op? I’m tired of the administration
thinking we are all idiots.
Kathryn Smith, LeesburgDear administration: We’re not idiots
I
T HAS been slightly more than four months
since Congress and President Trump met what
was still an incipient coronavirus pandemic
with $2.7 trillion worth of economic and health-
care support. Passage of the Cares Act in late March,
by overwhelming consensus of what is usually a
bitterly polarized and divided legislature, represent-
ed hopeful evidence that American democracy could
still function when it really had to.
At least that was our evaluation then; recent
events in Washington, though, cause us to reconsid-
er. Progress against the pandemic has faded and, in
some places, turned into regression. As a result, the
economic recovery has stalled, just as we were
warned it would. Yet Congress and the president are
deadlocked on a new round of urgently needed
economic support. The immediate consequences
are likely to be worst for those least able to
withstand them: the expiration, at midnight Friday,
of both a $600-per-week federal supplement to
unemployment insurance and a moratorium on
evictions.The main problem is disarray among Republi-
cans, who have wasted precious time debating a
counterproposal to the $3 trillion Heroes Act that
the Democratic House passed months ago. There are
differences within the Senate GOP and between the
Senate GOP and Mr. Trump. The latest intra-GOP
flap arose when the White House contradicted
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.)
long-standing demand that any bill must include
liability protections for businesses and universities
that reopen.
This has to stop. The Cares Act was not only a
symbolic victory for the political process, it was a
substantive one, too. The billions of dollars in aid to
households, through additional unemployment in-
surance or direct payments, coupled with the
Paycheck Protection Program for small businesses,
have so far protected vulnerable families from what
otherwise would have been catastrophic economic
losses. In fact, personal disposable income actually
rose in the second quarter of 2020, even as the
economy shrank at an annual rate of 32.9 percent.Ideally, Congress would produce a new bill that
modified what was inevitably imperfect about the
Cares Act and included funds to help state and local
governments. Especially urgent within aid to the
states would be generous financial support for the
November elections. As important as it is to salvage
the economy, it might be even more vital to salvage
the legitimacy of the vote.
We understand why Democrats may be content to
stand back and let Republicans fight among them-
selves, at least for now. They can plausibly argue that
they have already done their part and that there’s no
point negotiating until they know who’s really in
charge on the other side. Still, there is pressure —
economic and political — on the GOP to produce a
bill, even if it’s only a short-term extension to
unemployment insurance and the eviction morato-
rium, which the White House now says it wants. As
in March, the American people are counting on their
elected representatives to address the crisis. The
Republicans should finally get serious, and the
Democrats should respond in kind.Come together, now
As benefits expire, Republican disarray is blocking a new pandemic aid bill.
ABCDE
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