Michigan vaccine rebuff puts Biden and a top ally in a dicey political spot

President Joe Biden is confronting his most controversial and politically unpalatable moment yet since assuming responsibility for the US' response to the pandemic.

His administration's blunt rebuff of a plea by his ally and Michigan's Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to target the state for an increased supply of vaccines to combat a Covid-19 spike represents the kind of tough decision the President will increasingly face on the exit road from the crisis. Agonizing trade-offs have long characterized the emergency, none more so than the one between public health and economic well-being that was crushed by the lockdowns needed to stem successive tides of infection. But the speeding vaccine program that has become a political shield for the President will not spare him from possibly damaging dilemmas like the one involving a swing state that helped pave his way to the White House.