Jake Sherman writes:

Let’s not mince words: Washington has been plunged into a crisis of historic proportions, frozen by a disease it is both unwilling and unable to control.

Washington crises typically conform to a predictable rhythm: They simmer, boil and come to their expected conclusion. The government shuts down for a few days, but it always reopens. A national security emergency demands an urgent response — and gets one.

But this time, America’s capital itself is crippled, leaving the country rudderless, leaderless and riven with bitter partisan fighting in the middle of a pandemic that has already claimed more than 200,000 lives and is nowhere near over.

One month before Election Day, with ballots already being cast, President Donald Trump is in a military hospital, where he will remain for days, being treated for Covid-19, a disease that’s particularly dangerous for people of his age and weight. His physician Saturday morning said he’s doing well and is fever free, but declined to say when precisely he was diagnosed, how long he expects him to be in the hospital. Asked whether the president was ever on supplemental oxygen, he was evasive. [Continue reading…]