The first casualty of war, even war against a virus, is truth By Andrea Widburg
“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.” – John Adams
The media has a fetish that Trump lies. According to the Washington Post (no link, because it’s behind a paywall), Trump has uttered more than 16,000 lies.
Drilling down, though, one discovers that, while Trump has lied (what politician hasn’t?), the WaPo’s humorless and biased habit of taking seriously puffery, exaggeration, and jokes turns everything into a lie. What reasonable people understand is that Trump exaggerates or jokes about things that don’t matter, but sticks with the truth about things that do.
Leftists do something even more serious, which is to classify as a lie anything with which they disagree. In other words, they set themselves up as the arbiters of absolute truth. From this pedestal, they shout down or completely censor statements they dislike – even if the statement is subjective or reasonably debatable – on the ground that the statement is a “lie.”
To support this tactic, leftists have to resort to blatant lies themselves. For example, when Trump expressed hope that chloroquine would help fight coronavirus, leftists immediately transformed the drug from a longtime, reputable standby into something evil. That’s how we got the “Trump made stupid American people eat fish tank cleaner” lie. And the “Trump made stupid Nigerian people eat fish tank cleaner” lie.
Another category of lies in recent days is the claim that Trump is failing to get needed supplies to hard-hit states. Just yesterday, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer issued a tweet revealing the lie behind her claim that “Trump’s administration won’t send us supplies.”
The most recent example of this supply lie comes from Governor Andrew Cuomo. It’s a significant lie because Cuomo is the latest sparkling object to attract Democrats’ as they see that their designated frontrunner, Groping Joe Biden, is mentally failing. They dream of gaming the primary system to oust Biden and insert Cuomo. (Sanders and his supporters will not be pleased.)
Cuomo’s lie arose because Trump issued a tweet pointing out that, even as Cuomo insists that he needs at least 30,000 new ventilators to meet future needs, New York has ventilators in storage:
Thousand of Federal Government (delivered) Ventilators found in New York storage. N.Y. must distribute NOW!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 27, 2020
When a reporter asked Cuomo about this tweet, Cuomo immediately said that Trump was lying – and then explained that the ventilators weren’t in storage for future needs, they were being stockpiled for future needs:
Q: “Is what the President said true, that you have ventilators in storage that that need to be distributed?”
Cuomo: “That is incorrect and grossly uninformed … WE HAVE VENTILATORS IN A STOCKPILE and we didn’t send them to the hospitals.”
— Cruadin (@cruadin) March 28, 2020
Unless we’re missing something here, Cuomo just called Trump a liar because Trump said ventilators are in storage and are immediately available to New York, but the “truth” is that the ventilators are stockpiled because New York might need them later. Diogenes would not be happy with Cuomo.
There’s something even more serious going on in the “truth v. lie” category, which is that, when the Democrat establishment disagrees with something that is reasonably open for debate, it will call it a lie if it comes from Trump or his supporters. The Democrats do this with subjective issues, such as Trump’s “hope” (now proven correct) that chloroquine would work. They also do this with factual matters that are reasonably debatable, such as the fact (now proven correct) that chloroquine would work.
The most recent, and perhaps most obvious, example is how Twitter, a leftist-run institution, handled tweets from Rudy Giuliani and Charlie Kirk. Both of those tweets said that Hydroxychloroquine is 100% effective at treating COVID-19 and that Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer is threatening doctors who prescribe it. Twitter deleted both posts for being false.
Contrary to Twitter, the tweets are almost entirely accurate. In the latest and best study, Hydroxychloroquine was 97.5% efficacious, which is damn close to 100%. Moreover, Whitmer did issue a notice to doctors threatening their licenses if they prescribe Hydroxychloroquine for any off-label use.
Twitter has established itself as the arbiter of coronavirus science. The media also claim to be final judges about scientific accuracy. These are the same media types whom Ben Rhodes, Barack Obama’s aide, described as incredibly stupid: “The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns. That’s a sea change. They literally know nothing.”
All Americans, regardless of their political viewpoints, should find disturbing the fact that, in a time of fear and confusion, marginally educated “know-nothings” have anointed themselves as the ultimate arbiters of truth.
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