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Trump’s absence from G-20 proves he never wanted to ‘do’ the job | READER COMMENTARY

For The Baltimore Sun
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga (top left), President Donald Trump (top right), Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud (center), South Korean President Moon Jae-in (3rd row, left), European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen (3rd row, right), and European Council President Charles Michel (down), are seen on a screen before the start of a virtual G-20 summit hosted by Saudi Arabia and held over video conference amid the COVID-19 pandemic, in Brussels, on Nov. 21, 2020.

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga (top left), President Donald Trump (top right), Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud (center), South Korean President Moon Jae-in (3rd row, left), European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen (3rd row, right), and European Council President Charles Michel (down), are seen on a screen before the start of a virtual G-20 summit hosted by Saudi Arabia and held over video conference amid the COVID-19 pandemic, in Brussels, on Nov. 21, 2020. (YVES HERMAN/AFP/Getty Images North America/TNS)

During the recent G-20 summit, Donald Trump left the virtual meeting of global leaders to play golf at his Virginia resort (”Vandalizing our democracy,” Nov. 23). I recently retired after a 45-year career as a director of pharmacy services in hospitals and ambulatory care clinics. When pharmacists applied for positions to supervise and lead technicians and other pharmacists, I asked, “Do you want to be it or do it?”

I followed with a statement: “If you don’t want to do it, don’t apply because long after the glamour of the recognition, the new title, the office, the enhanced power and the bump in salary wears off, you are left with having the do the work.” If you don’t love the work, it won’t last.

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I am afraid we elected a president who wanted to “be” it rather than to “do” it. This has become excruciatingly clear during the lame duck period. I have more confidence that Joe Biden wants to do it. He has for a long time.

Marc Summerfield, Bel Air

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