Photo credit: msn.com<\/p><\/div>\n

I love using baseball metaphors when discussing politics in countries that have no interest in baseball.<\/p>\n

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar smashed it out of the park last night with his St. Patrick’s Day address to the nation. He spoke about the COVID-19 pandemic in a fashion that was direct, honest, and compassionate. His speech was sobering, yet oddly comforting. His plan for “cocooning” senior citizens and people who are immuno-compromised is a good one, and I hope the United States takes up that plan as well.<\/p>\n

In times of uncertainty and, yes, panic, we can all find comfort in a strong, confident leader who can articulate clear plans to help us. The Taoiseach’s stated plans prioritize saving lives, not saving the stock market or saving the fortunes of billionaires. I live in the United States, so I can tell you that this speech was phenomenal in the context of the utter black hole of leadership that we have experienced here.<\/p>\n

Watch the Taoiseach’s speech:<\/p>\n

http:\/https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/watch\/?v=767807827375275<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I love using baseball metaphors when discussing politics in countries that have no interest in baseball. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar smashed it out of the park last night with his St. Patrick’s Day address to the nation. He spoke about the COVID-19 pandemic in a fashion that was direct, honest, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,14],"tags":[110,109,9,31,115,116,112,114],"class_list":["post-657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-politics","tag-coronavirus","tag-covid-19","tag-ireland","tag-irish","tag-leo-varadkar","tag-pandemic","tag-social-distancing","tag-taoiseach"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lauraweinsteinphd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lauraweinsteinphd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lauraweinsteinphd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lauraweinsteinphd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lauraweinsteinphd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=657"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.lauraweinsteinphd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":662,"href":"http:\/\/www.lauraweinsteinphd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657\/revisions\/662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lauraweinsteinphd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lauraweinsteinphd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lauraweinsteinphd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}