President Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic has been a case study in a management style marked by falsehoods and intimidation. Rather than risk inviting his ire, subordinates and fellow Republicans covered for him as he delayed a coordinated response to the coronavirus and it felled nearly 200 Americans.

His political allies haven’t been the only ones to fall into line. Just look at the way the president co-opted Google.

While declaring the national emergency last Friday, President Trump announced that he had enlisted Google to create a broadly available website to help facilitate testing for the virus. He said that 1,700 engineers were working on the site and had “made tremendous progress.”

It sounded ambitious and promising. If only it were true.

What followed were attempts by Google to placate the president and a mad scramble to get done what he’d said it was already doing.