Wear the darn mask, Mr. President

Wear the darn mask, Mr. President.

You are not above the law, and no, you are not the law, as much as you want to be.

It’s not manly to go maskless in public. It’s dumb.

You are an obviously overweight guy in your 70s. You are at risk.

You don’t drink or smoke, I understand, but reports say your diet is a nutritionist’s nightmare, French fries, diet soda, fast food, bacon and eggs.

You’re richer than Croesus and surprised even yourself by getting elected president.

That makes you lucky, not more than human.

As a human, you are vulnerable to a very contagious, too-often fatal virus that we don’t understand enough about, except that it kills too many people and disables more who go into induced comas to be placed on ventilators.

We don’t even know whether, once you get it and get over it, you get it again next week, even though some people seem to develop antibodies that give them some immunity.

You claim to know more than doctors, even though your real estate background includes no science.

You have an uncle who is a brilliant physician. You say that gives you strong instincts for medicine.

I have a brother who has post-doctoral credentials in chemistry. Does that give me instinct? Maybe, but so what?

Instinct and two dollars will get you a cup of coffee in most hospitals, but not admitting privileges.

That requires backing up your instinct with eight to 10 years of the hardest work you’ll ever do in medical school, like your uncle did.

If you do that and then spend 25 years in medical research, maybe we’ll listen to you instead of Dr. Fauci.

The force of your playground-bully personality makes you no more credible in your medical judgment than your overused TV remote.

Doctors who aren’t star-struck by your fame and riches tell us that hydroxychloroquine is ineffective against the coronavirus and could kill you.

You are overweight and don’t exercise, so you are vulnerable to hydroxychloroquine’s effects on unhealthy hearts, like heart failure.

You take it anyway, ignoring the fact that a lot of people less healthy than you are will also take it on your advice alone, without consulting a doctor.

And now, because you’re rich and famous and all, you think you’re too darn special to wear a mask.

You wear the mask because it protects other people, even if you don’t care a rat’s whisker about anybody who fails to worshipfully agree with you on everything, no exceptions; hasn’t known you since childhood; or has not joined your exalted family through birth or marriage.

But you’re human, too, Mr. President.

Fame and money do not make you immune from the same bodily functions as the rest of us.

And like us, you can carry the coronavirus without knowing it and pass it along to others.

Even if you really don’t care about 99 percent of the people you seem to want to rule, not lead, you have act like you do sometimes.

Wear the darn mask.

Steve Hansen writes for Clovis Media Inc. Contact him at:

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