I was very pleased when reading The Recorder’s editorial “Staying calm in trying times” until I got about half way down. At that point you decided to attack the White House and the president for not exhibiting “true leadership.”

I find it very interesting that so many people living in the sheltered shire of Franklin County often shout out on all types of issues that they may know very little about. Let’s face the facts, we live in somewhat of a bubble in our cherished small and beautiful river valley.

Do we realize that on about Dec. 10, it is believed the first case of the coronavirus emerged in Wuhan, China? It took until Dec. 31 for China to notify the WHO of a mysterious pneumonia sickening dozens of people in Wuhan.

Then on Jan. 15, China sends a large delegation to the White House to sign the first phase of the trade deal with the United States. On Jan. 31, our president restricts travel from China at the howls of his opponents accusing him of being racist!

On March 4, Chinese state media threaten to cut off critical supply of drugs to the United States. Along with pushing the theory that the U.S. militarily started the coronavirus, the Chinese government now tells us that as of March 19 they have no new local cases. Do you think that this type of craziness should help us sleep well at this point?

The truth of the matter is that we have never had to deal with anything of this magnitude in modern times. Ebola and SARS were never as prolific as COVID-19 and did not have a large group of carriers showing little or no symptoms. Everyone needs to be real about what just happened; we, the people of the world just got sucker punched by the government of China.

Moving along, after constant news conferences from the beginning of the WHO announcements on the coronavirus, the president appoints Vice President Mike Pence as the coronavirus response coordinator on Feb. 27. They have assembled a team of some of the best experts that we have in our country to do everything in their power to solve this problem. Since then, they have partnered in incredible ways with private industry that has staff at the ready to fill the needs of the American people when it would be impossible to spontaneously build up our government to do the same task.

Many rules and regulations had to be torn down by executive order to allow us to react to the grave situation that we are in. We can now use industrial N95 face mask for medical purposes. Ford, GM, and Tesla are making respirators. Haynes is making masks, Midwestern alcohol producers are making hand sanitizer. Great things are happening, the giant flywheel of American ingenuity is starting to spin and it will be amazing to watch as it revs up. Check it all out; the White House has a press conference midday every day.

On the subject of lack of leadership, how can anyone expect Washington to determine the best path for each and every state? Yes, Gov. Baker, who I have strongly supported and voted for, did act a few days ahead of Washington. You, the editors of the Recorder, used our governor’s actions to try to shame the slower actions of our president. As a side thought, how many people in the Recorder’s area voted for your new hero, Gov. Baker ? How can we expect Washington or our president to have better knowledge of our state and make more informed decisions than our governor?

I voted for President Trump and intend on voting for him again. To be clear, I did not vote either time for President Obama but when we elected him as our president, he was my president and I looked for all of the good that he did for our country. I didn’t constantly try to put any form of obstacle in his path as he did his very best to lead our country. To me, it is very unfortunate that the editors of the Recorder couldn’t help calm and inform the people of our valley without succumbing to their urge for political hate.

Barry Bordner is a resident of Northfield.