A sick body politic

摘要

PRESIDENTIAL HISTORY is replete with lies and evasions concerning the state of the commander-in-chief s health. Gro-ver Cleveland underwent secret cancer surgery, in the dead of night, aboard a yacht anchored in Long Island Sound. An ailing Franklin D. Roosevelt won the election in 1944 while claiming to be in the pink-and died three months into his new term. Rumours persist that Ronald Reagan began showing signs of dementia while in office. That the current administration has been less than straightforward about when Donald Trump contracted covid-19, what his subsequent movements were and how sick he remains might have been the most normal drama of his entire presidency. Yet, as always, he writes his own script. Whereas Roosevelt sought to underplay his sickness, Mr Trump has gone overboard in claiming to have not merely survived the coronavirus, but vanquished it. After three nights in Walter Reed Medical Centre, following his tweeted announcement of a positive covid-19 test on October 2nd, Mr Trump declared that he had not felt better in 20 years, had "learned a lot" about the virus, then got himself discharged.