Obama criticised for speaking out against Trump

The usual gentleman's agreement is that former presidents let the encumbent president get on with the job without criticising him or his policies. Barak Obama I guess couldn't help himself when he was asked during a telephone chat with former members of his administration about the Trump team's handling of the coronavirus pandemic and gave his view: catastrophic! Well it was a phone conversation, not a public statement or an oped in The Washington Post. But of course his comment was leaked to all the newspapers and it certainly looked as if he had violated the presidential club rules. He was echoing what a lot of people in the US are saying about Trump's somewhat varied orchestration of the virus battle, but Obama as Trump's immediate predecessor was opening himself up for criticism. And sure enough it comes from that delightful man Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican majority leader of the Senate. He pointedly remarked on CNN that Obama should have kept his mouth shut and said his comments were classless. I don't think he meant that. I think he meant Obama was lacking in class which is sort of the same thing but not quite. Anyway McConnell was not slow in coming forward with his view against Obama. I don't suppose Obama will lose much sleep over Senator McConnell's attack on him. McConnell after all was the man who when Obama was president made it clear he had only one aim during the administration of the first African/American to become president which was for him to fail. And by God he did his best at the Senate to ruin Obama's administration, blocking everything Obama tried to do. How about that for sheer spite and political anarchy? For my money, McConnell should keep his mouth shut. With any luck the Republicans will lose control of the Senate and he will not be around any more to screw up the next president if it happens to be Joe Biden or some other Democrat. Meanwhile Obama will probably bite his tongue the next time he has occasion to speak about Trump and coronavirus. On the whole it probably is better that former presidents keep their views about the current president to themselves.