It astonishes me that Marc Theissen doesn’t recognize the irony, or outright hypocrisy, of his writing.

Thiessen criticizes Kamala Harris (Sep. 11) calling it shameful for her to cast doubt on the efficacy and safety of a coronavirus vaccine that was rushed into production before the presidential election. He criticizes her for somehow undermining public confidence by distrusting a truncated development program that dramatically shortens normal test periods with reduced numbers of test subjects.

Ms. Harris’ response that she does not trust the president’s assurances of a safe and effective vaccine is reasonable in light of his obvious efforts to boost his reelection chances. Worried about negative effects the virus would have on the stock market, economy, and his reelection, he downplayed the disease as just a little flu and failed to take action for at least a month after he learned of it. He dumped resolution on state governors, denying any responsibility instead of developing a coherent plan of containment. And yes, the administration muzzled senior public health officials to prevent them from contradicting the president’s misinformation, so why shouldn’t Thiessen expect distrust?

Simultaneously, Thiessen ignores the president’s effort to undermine confidence in mail-in balloting for the election despite no documented evidence to support his contentions of voting fraud. Mail-in balloting has been used successfully in several states for many years. It is more likely that any October Surprise will be a political ploy on the president’s part than it will be a safe and effective solution to the pandemic crisis.