QUOTE : They could really only nod politely at the biggest point made by David Sencer and the others: to preserve the president’s credibility, you needed to keep him as loosely linked to the public side of the decision-making as possible. The enemy was a virus. The enemy’s chief weapon was rapid and random mutation. It might well necessitate big changes of strategy, and these were bound to be viewed by the public as signs of ineptitude, and the president would need to seem to be the one to rescue these situations rather than be rescued from them.