On Monday, a Trump-appointed judge of questionable legal credentials and an appetite for fileting the English language struck down the CDC’s requirement that “a person must wear a mask while boarding, disembarking, and traveling on any conveyance into or within the United States.” Within hours, major carriers lifted the mask requirements, in some cases during flights, sandbagging passengers who’d taken comfort knowing their fellow passengers were masked. It is difficult to assess whether or not the lifting of the mandate will have an impact on public health, but at least one carrier, Delta Airlines, was initially willing to plump up its assessment with some magical thinking: In an eventually retracted statement, Delta said, “We are relieved to see the U.S. mask mandate lift to facilitate global travel as Covid-19 has transitioned to an ordinary seasonal virus”—badly botching the definitions of both “ordinary” and “seasonal.”

It would have been nice if the Biden administration had been as quick on the draw. In a press conference after the decision, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki could only profess “disappointment” over the decision, coupled with a wan recommendation that passengers continue to wear masks. Meanwhile, an anonymous lobbyist suggested to The New York Times’ Jonathan Martin that the administration was perhaps not that “upset about the ruling,” presumably because any blame for what ill effects might follow could now be laid at the GOP’s doorstep. On Tuesday, according to Politico, White House officials essentially passed the buck between various executive branch agencies, looking for some sucker to take responsibility for whatever came next. Come Wednesday, the Department of Justice finally announced it would appeal the decision.

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Originally Appeared Here