Misleading By Example
“‘Sometimes it seems like they have literally thrown out the book,’ said Joshua Sharfstein, a former top FDA official and Johns Hopkins University professor who is using the CDC manual to teach a crisis communication class. ‘We’re studying what to do — and at times seeing what not to do — on the same day.'” WaPo: Trump is breaking every rule in the CDC’s 450-page playbook for health crisis. (Someone needs to turn it into a picture book, stat.)
+ While yesterday’s press conference left modern Americans aghast at the phrase, “I don’t take responsibility at all,” historians may remember it more for the visuals; a large gathering of leaders and reporters, shoulder to shoulder, with much handshaking all around. Today’s was more of the same. Here’s the latest: Travel limitations will be extended to the UK and Ireland, domestic travel could be next, Trump has been tested though the results aren’t in (which is precisely why he should be in self-quarantine), and the House passed a relief package. Follow along with the NYT, WaPo, CNN, and BBC.
+ The buck does not stop with Trump, but the lying really has to. Wired: Google’s not making a nationwide coronavirus testing website. “And the company had no idea the president would say it was.” And that “nasty” exchange about the closure of the pandemic office? Let’s set the record straight. Beth Cameron in WaPo: I ran the White House pandemic office. Trump closed it. And from 2018: “The top White House official responsible for leading the U.S. response in the event of a deadly pandemic has left the administration, and the global health security team he oversaw has been disbanded under a reorganization by national security adviser John Bolton.”
+ Derek Thompson: “In the United States, the pandemic has devolved into a kind of grotesque caricature of American federalism. The private sector has taken on quasi-state functions at a time when the executive branch of government—drained of scientific expertise, starved of moral vision—has taken on the qualities of a failed state.”
+ “The Trumpian response to covid-19 has been compared to the Soviet government’s response to the accident at the Chernobyl power plant, in 1986. For once, this comparison is not far-fetched.” The New Yorker: How the Coronavirus Pandemic Fuels Trump’s Autocratic Instincts. (Like they needed more fuel…)
+ And a particularly ominous tweet blast from the past. Trump on Jan 27: “We are in very close communication with China concerning the virus. Very few cases reported in USA, but strongly on watch. We have offered China and President Xi any help that is necessary. Our experts are extraordinary!” (China’s Jack Ma is donating supplies to the US.)
