Wednesday, May 13, 2020
Good News
As reported in the Washington Post: New York Times reporter Don McNeil utters some home truths on CNN, but could never say on his employer's dime. Maybe that's okay, if he had the guts to say them to Christine Amanpour where many more people would hear them. McNeil has been covering the plague.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I can't get through the Post's paywall, but a friend of mine recently referred to Pence as a "toady". I'll assume McNeil's thoughts were in the same vein.
ReplyDeleteHe said, "sycophant," high-class word for Toady. He also said CDC head Redfield should resign. I have wondered why there haven't been calls for that. Now there is. Among other missteps, he promised tests that proved unusable. Remember that? Way back at the beginning.
DeleteWell, that is simply the Victorian Gentleman of K Street calling the Grande Dame of Eighth Avenue an old fuddyduddy. I haven't see the Post calling the toady a toady in its news columns, either. And it shouldn't, on the old principle that the average human being can see through a phony at 40 paces, even though the aveage contemporary American apparently can't.
ReplyDeleteYes, Tom. BUT there's something refreshing about sycophant!..And the Wash Post only printed a column about McNeil saying it to Christine Amanpour on CNN. Only reporting the news, you know!
DeleteThis from a friend, Wash Post reader, and journalist:
ReplyDelete"He called Pence a sycophant because he couldn’t call him an asshole on TV.
But, that said, I get the point about the NYTimes regulation but I am also glad that the WashPost aired the issue. The Post actually has a pretty good team of media reporters and commentators, including Margaret Sullivan and, of course, Wimple.
Honestly I think Trump is getting crazier and crazier by the day. Sunday’s Tweetstorm was amazing. (Really, they ought to let the man go golfing before he truly goes over the edge.) Then his put down of the CBS reporter, who is Chinese-American, before stalking off was another example of losing it. I hope that we can survive another five months. And God forbid another four years."
For the good of the country - and, yes, I admit, the GOP - I really was hoping that Pence would rise to the occasion of this crisis. He hasn't utterly failed on all fronts, but he hasn't been (as one local suburban mayor erroneously referred yesterday to his town's pure dumb luck in being missed so far by the virus) "crushing it", either.
DeleteAnd I would say, on the specific topic of getting a regimen of testing underway at sufficient scale, that Pence has failed. We still don't know more than we do know, because we lack facts. And jurisdiction after jurisdiction is making a decision to re-open with few or no facts available to support that decision. We're risking a public health nightmare. I hope it doesn't happen, but hoping that the enemy surrenders is no way to run a war.
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteSometimes I fear that the Trump mafia will succeed at what Republicans (most of them) have long claimed: government doesn't work...well, it won't work if you persistently disable it by appointing people who don't know what they're doing-- as we see before before our very eyes (and brains).
DeleteFrom what I'm reading, even the countries that have reopened are doing it with mask weearing and distancing. So maybe a "new normal".
DeleteWhen it was asked this morning at the men's group who would be staying away when Sunday Masses resume on Pentecost, I got a laugh with this line: "This reopening has been set up after careful examination of the best available political knowledge. Count me out."
DeleteDid anyone see this story? A man who claimed he had Covid deliberately spat on and coughed on a British railway ticket worker. Who has now died of Covid. Reminds me of the case during the AIDS crisis in which a dentist deliberately exposed one of his patients to AIDS, and she died.
ReplyDeleteMasks are for sissies. Did everyone see Frank Bruni today?
Deletehttps://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/12/opinion/coronavirus-masks.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
It included, among others, this anecdote"
When the president visited Phoenix a week ago, some residents who’d turned out to see him harangued journalists in masks, “saying how we’re only wearing masks to instill fear,” BrieAnna Frank, a reporter with The Arizona Republic, told Tom Jones of Poynter. Frank posted a Twitter thread with videos in which journalists were loudly accused of being “on the wrong side of patriotism” and “like communists.”
Our local columnists had advice from the "Liberate Florida" movement (what's making he governor consult the best political advice on coronavirus). It's along the same lines. What the knuckleheads will never get is that the mask protects them from us, not us from them. We are trying to save their lives; they are trying to kill us.
Masks have become politicized in Michigan and everywhere else is my guess. My brother-in-law is getting his "wearing mask is a conspiracy to stoke fear" info from the Washington Times. A security guard attempting to enforce a must-wear-mask policy at a discount store in Flint was shot dead in the back of the head.
DeleteHowever, I have to say as I am out and about slightly more, most people are trying to be good citizens.
A small number seem to be completely enraged all the time. Lots of day drinking, no bars open to let off steam, watching bills pile up, and listening to a steady stream of Fox, is my guess.
Attended a small birthday party for my friend's nurse daughter. We were outside in 59°F weather, six feet apart and wearing masks. This young woman's NJ ICU no longer has COVID patients and she is relieved. I want to do what I can to keep it that way. Apparently one third of New Jerseyites have had it, the closest to herd immunity in the nation. The hospitals are preparing to perform all the delayed operations. I think there will be a second surge but at least they've learned a lot in caring for the victims. Fanatical looneybirds running around and carrying on are not needed at this stage.
DeleteHoping heavy rains reduce the number of protesters in Lansing today. State cops have asked those carrying weapons not to brandish and point them at people. Which will likely make them do it more. Praying for cooler heads to prevail.
DeleteJean, when I get a chance, I'll be searching for videos or photos of the drenched protesters today. I'm wondering in particular if any of them will be using umbrellas but not wearing masks. It would be a curious thing if the fear of getting wet outweighs the fear of infecting others.
DeleteHere ya go, Jimbo. All these folks inspired by your party's prez and the belief in unfettered free markets and individual rights!
Deletehttps://www.mlive.com/public-interest/2020/05/soggy-protesters-demand-michigan-gov-whitmer-end-the-coronavirus-lockdown.html
Also this lovely image: a naked Whitmer doll hanging from a noose.
https://www.mlive.com/public-interest/2020/05/fight-erupts-at-michigan-capitol-over-doll-with-a-noose-around-neck.html
Welcome to Michitucky.
Trump: "As I have said for a long time, dealing with China is a very expensive thing to do. We just made a great Trade Deal, the ink was barely dry, and the World was hit by the Plague from China. 100 Trade Deals wouldn’t make up the difference - and all those innocent lives lost!"
ReplyDeleteThe "China did it!" distraction is truly breathtaking. Breathtaking in the way a mugger might punch you in the diaphragm and then sue you because you didn't have enough money worth stealing. I see Kelly Loeffler was advancing that "we were unprepared because China lied" story at the Fauci hearing yesterday.
I thought the Chinese-American reporter's making the "ask China" retort at yesterday's news conference all about her was a bad move. She's not there to gin up a racist moment, but to push Trump to explain why there are still outbreaks in urban centers (DC is heating up now) despite his claim to have more tests than anywhere in the world.
That was an utter fiasco.
I didn't see the actual interview; I read a transcript of it. Sometimes maybe reporters give into the temptation to wind Trump up. Thinking, he hates us anyway, might as well see if he'll have a melt-down. And it just exposes how unfit he is for the office.
DeleteI saw a video of the scene. And it is not the first time a reporter has asked something that seems designed not to elicit information but to provoke Trump. He is eminently provokable, of course; it's part of his drama queen behavior. At the same time, such questioning often appears to be an effort to create "news" by getting him to behave like an ass.
DeleteThat is not news coverage.
I'm all for provoking Trump by questioning his logic, his info, and his record.
DeleteHowever, the reporter's question was loaded: “Why is this a global competition to you if every day Americans are still losing their lives?”
She could have said, "Despite increased testing can you please address the fact that, minus New York, the number of cases nationwide is rising, while Denmark, Germany, and South Korea have far lower infection and death rates?"
If he responded, "Ask China," the appropriate response would have been to ask him to elaborate, since he had closed the border to China many weeks. ago.
There are ways to box in an a-hole just by asking polite but persistent questions. It makes the meltdown look much worse if you keep your cool and he doesn't.