You may have heard Senator McConnell on the Senate floor preemptively taking credit for a resurgent economy and a pandemic on its last legs. In his version these were inevitable because of the great work under the previous administration. Biden is just riding the tide that started rolling in prior to January 20, 2021. Here are his exact words:

“For weeks every indicator has suggested our economy is poised to come roaring back with more job openings for Americans who need work. None of those trends began on January 20th. President Biden and his Democratic government inherited a tide that had already began to turn toward decisive victory. In 2020 Congress passed 5 historic bipartisan bills to save our health system, protect our economic foundations, and fund Operation Warp Speed to design vaccines….Senate Republicans led the bipartisan Cares Act that got our country through the last year. The American people already built a parade that’s marching toward victory. Democrats just are trying to sprint in front of the parade to claim credit.”

The “parade” McConnell imagines, if it existed, was hardly marching along. Like the Aesop’s racing Hare, it took quite a breather and decided to shift gears to idle for a long siesta.

This morning my wife and I went to Roseland Hospital for our second Pfizer shot. The hospital staff did yeoman work and in an hour, we were injected and out the door, proudly wearing our “I Got It” stickers.

We brought books along to while away the wait. My wife brought a Jacqueline Winspear mystery; I chose a translation of Marcus Cicero’s “How To Grow Old”. Don’t ask me why. I just did.

I had heard the above-quoted passage of McConnell’s Senate speech last night on the air. It struck me then as a typical Republican re-write of history, in this case, history we all have fresh in our memories and easy to fact check.

I never imagined the Roman stoic Cicero would provide a telling commentary on McConnell’s words. But I let you decide if he does. Here’s what Cicero wrote, the Latin translated by Philip Freeman. By the way, Quintus Fabius, was a famous Roman general remembered mostly for his delaying or dilatory tactics.

” Such vigilance and skill he [Fabius] displayed in recapturing Tarentum! I myself heard Salinator—the Roman commandeer who had lost the town and fled to the citadel—boast to him, ‘Quintus Fabius, you owe the retaking to me.’ The general laughed and said in reply,’That’s certainly true, since I wouldn’t have had to recapture it if you hadn’t lost it in the first place.'”

Perhaps, McConnell forgot who lost the town of Washington D.C. and fled to his citadel in Florida.