After Suggesting Birx Is Trump Stooge, NY Times Says Criticizing Fauci Endangers Lives

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The front page of Sunday’s New York Times used the coronavirus crisis to hypocritically accuse the right of spreading life-threatening disinformation about coronavirus expert Anthony Fauci: “Chief Scientist Draws Venom From the Right.”

Yet the Times itself questioned the credibility of coronavirus expert Deborah Birx after she expressed guarded optimism. To suggest Birx is a Trump stooge is vital news, but to call Fauci a Hillary stooge demands a front-page Times investigation itself?



Twitter reaction was launched after Fauci rubbed his forehead during a briefing. Reporters Davey Alba and Sheera Frenkel were appalled:

Some thought Dr. Fauci was slighting the president, leading to a vitriolic online reaction. On Twitter and Facebook, a post that falsely claimed he was part of a secret cabal who opposed Mr. Trump…

A week later, Dr. Fauci — the administration’s most outspoken advocate of emergency measures to fight the coronavirus outbreak — has become the target of an online conspiracy theory that he is mobilizing to undermine the president.

That fanciful claim has spread across social media, fanned by a right-wing chorus of Mr. Trump’s supporters….

The Times was on it:

An analysis by The New York Times found over 70 accounts on Twitter that have promoted the hashtag #FauciFraud, with some tweeting as frequently as 795 times a day….

So what was the count for virulent anti-Birx tweets spurred by the paper’s own reporting?

The torrent of falsehoods aimed at discrediting Dr. Fauci is another example of the hyperpartisan information flow that has driven a wedge into the way Americans think. For the past few years, far-right supporters of President Trump have regularly vilified those whom they see as opposing him.

It is the latest twist in the ebb and flow of right-wing punditry that for weeks echoed Mr. Trump in minimizing the threat posed by the coronavirus and arguably undercut efforts to alert the public of its dangers. When the president took a more assertive posture against the outbreak, conservative outlets shifted, too — but now accuse Democrats and journalists of trying to use the pandemic to damage Mr. Trump politically.

The point in bold above is obviously true.

The reporters spun the scattered Twitter criticism of Fauci into life and death, quoting Syracuse University professor Whitney Phillips:

“What this case will show is that conspiracy theories can kill,” she said.

After Fauci’s gesture:

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The New York Pravda nothing but leftists propeganda and LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES SQUAWK SQUAWK KRRRAAAAAWWWW, SREEEEEEE SKREEEET

So desperate, pathetic trying to tear apart Trumps team.
The good doctor is one of the experts Pence is relying on these experts yes they have connections to other health organizations. Very few believe they would be as evil as to throw a wrench in the works.
The NYSlimes has a reputation that can no longer be redeemed.

One, I haven’t heard or seen anything from the right attacking Dr. Fauchi. Two, the left has done nothing but promote fear and panic while trying to destroy the unity of Trump’s team, which has been very successful and effective in meeting this crisis.

Both Brix AND Fauci are doing a great job. It’s all about perspective. Fauci can’t speak to economic concerns. That’s not his job. Trump may not always agree with some of his team members, but they don’t always agree with each other, either. Together, the advice they are providing Trump is helping him make the right decisions. When Brix says that 100,000 to 200,000 deaths may be our best-case scenario, that can’t make the Don happy. Yet they’re making it work. Impressive.

@George Wells: In aviation, you work to a schedule. You identify the work package, estimate the materials needed and availability, labor available and a completion date. Then you work towards that scheduled date.

Modifying and repairing aircraft is a critical business. You can’t cut corners; it;s not safe and federal regulations must be met, but working to the schedule and doing the work in the shortest possible time is the GOAL. That’s not to say estimates can’t be wrong (overly optimistic or sandbagged) or unforeseen events interfere. But reaching the completion in the shortest possible time is the goal. And LIVES depend upon the proper processes be followed.

I have no doubts this is how Trump has operated his entire professional life.

@Deplorable Me:
I have no objection to anything you wrote in your first two paragraphs.
I am perhaps not quite so free of doubts as you claim to be in your last sentence, however, as it has been my experience that no person is above making the occasional mistake. I will grant that Trump probably does set perfection as a personal goal, but like the rest of us, he finds that goal just a tad bit out of reach. There-in lies the legitimate purpose of criticism: it gives the rest of us license to point out each other’s failures and help each other improve ourselves. I agree that the media is often overly critical of Trump to the point of being insulting, but he is not above needing the occasional target realignment. Nobody’s perfect.

@George Wells: Well, once again, you’ll have to point out to me where I indicated I believed Trump is “above making the occasional mistake.” Ideally, you will simply admit you, again, built yet another straw man. That would be my recommendation.

@George Wells:

When Brix says that 100,000 to 200,000 deaths may be our best-case scenario, that can’t make the Don happy.

Uh, who exactly does get happy from that? The media saturation has hid it’s own desperation to use the coronavirus for Democrat gain by accusing Trump of doing the same. There is a very real concern of not getting people back to work and the economy moving. There will be deaths from that, to be sure. It’s a bad decision, and Trump will be called incompetent no matter how well he performs.

Trump is very consistent, and has always, ALWAYS got the best people he can to do the work. That’s not changed.

@Deplorable Me:

you’ll have to point out to me where I indicated I believed Trump is “above making the occasional mistake.” Ideally, you will simply admit you, again, built yet another straw man.

I am afraid you misunderstood what I said. Perhaps I was not clear in my meaning, so I apologize. In case you missed it, I’ve been giving Trump high marks for his COVID-19 performance of late, so perhaps I should have said he was above making the occasional mistake and taken away your confusion altogether. Trump doesn’t like to ever admit making a mistake – nobody does, particularly politicians. I don’t remember Trump ever admitting he DID make a mistake… but I’ll happily be corrected by your encyclopedic recall of his every utterance. In fact, I look forward to it.

@Nathan Blue:

Trump is very consistent, and has always, ALWAYS got the best people he can to do the work. That’s not changed.

You lost me. Are we both talking about the same TRUMP? The Trump who hires and fires staff so fast it makes my head spin? Spicer? Huckabee Sanders? Flynn? Manafort? Comey? Mattis? Priebus? Scaramucci? Kelly? Mulvaney? Bannon? McMaster? Bolton? Christie? Omarosa???? and HUNDREDS MORE!

What, exactly, does “the best people he can” mean, anyway? It would seem he’s using the same head-hunter that the New York Mafia uses to fill its vacancies.

@George Wells: In light of the fact that his response in the crisis has been pretty much spot on, what would be the point of researching to see if Trump ever admitted making a mistake? Unlike some, I don’t NEED that kind of reinforcement.

@Deplorable Me:

In light of the fact that his response in the crisis has been pretty much spot on, what would be the point of researching to see if Trump ever admitted making a mistake?

Starting what? Ten days ago? He’s been doing a reasonably good job making the correct calls since then, but he didn’t start out that way. He repeatedly assured us that this would all be over in a matter of days or at the most a few weeks, not flipping into crisis mode until he was INFORMED. Mind you, I’m not being overly critical – we didn’t fully understand what we faced, and that includes our president.

The point of retrospectively studying our leadership under pressure would be so that WE could identify our weaknesses – including the president’s – and work on installing processes to correct them. And the admitting part speaks to honesty and transparency on the one hand and to a sane grasp of reality on the other – both deserving the attention of an electorate that places its trust in him.

@George Wells: Starting from the beginning. They had a plan that adapts to the circumstances. Recall that based on the information provided by WHO (you know… the “experts”) which was fed then by the Chinese, the response was directed at the facts known.

Hindsight doesn’t work.

Another FA article makes it clear that without Trump’s bold travel ban, the rest of the world would have taken much longer to take the same bold, necessary action. In essence, Trump made the WORLD safer; clinging to the avoidance of the travel bans to keep from hurting feelings would have led to far wider spread of the infection that we’ve seen.

The weaknesses identified was the red tape and regulation that prohibits rapid adaptation and reaction to events… which Trump moved swiftly to eliminate. Another would be that Democrats would have turned this crisis into a total disaster.

@Deplorable Me:

Hindsight doesn’t work.

As a stand-alone statement, I don’t know what this means. Hindsight is usually noted as being 20-20, meaning that in retrospect, the truth is clear and unobstructed to the vision. Once fully seen and appreciated for what it is, what has become history teaches us lessons that apply forward, lest history repeats itself needlessly.

Most of your other stuff I have no dispute over, save your:

Democrats would have turned this crisis into a total disaster

, a comment that does not logically follow:

The weaknesses identified was the red tape and regulation that prohibits rapid adaptation and reaction to events… which Trump moved swiftly to eliminate.

The latter is a statement of recent historical fact, while the former is speculation about the future. You may include both in a single paragraph, but one does not logically follow the other.

@George Wells: Democrats still have not come to support travel bans or enforcing our immigration laws. So, while we are trying to identify and treat the cases we have, more cases would be constantly flowing into the country if Democrats were in charge. That’s not speculatory; that is a pretty accurate assessment.

I don’t know your rules, so please forgive me for violating them.

@Deplorable Me:

Democrats still have not come to support travel bans or enforcing our immigration laws.

That must prove that I’m not a Democrat, as I support our country’s right to impose travel bans and to enforce immigration laws. I also don’t give a rat’s ass whether Trump builds his freakin’ wall a thousand feet high. Governments are quick to spend money on stupid projects, and have every right to do so, and even wasteful spending DOES have a stimulating effect on the economy.

The only problem I STILL see with your FOCUS on illegals is that shutting off their flow ENTIRELY will not stop pathogens from entering the USA from abroad. Until you stop ALL PEOPLE from entering – EVER – and that includes legal citizens – you won’t stop germs and viruses from entering with them.

I said it before: I wish Trump would finish building his wall, so we could move on to addressing our OWN disease vectors.

But thanks for clearing up that Democrat thing…

@George Wells:

The only problem I STILL see with your FOCUS on illegals is that shutting off their flow ENTIRELY will not stop pathogens from entering the USA from abroad.

Well, that is undoubtedly due to your seemingly irrepressible urge to be ignorant. I don’t “focus” on them nor have I EVER said, hinted, implied that stopping illegal immigrants (or travel bans, for that matter) would entirely stop infections. You can provide the proof I’m lying if you can, but I’ll continue as before nonetheless, assuming you can’t.

Controlling our borders merely controls what we let in. However, if a person, even entering legally, is infected without showing symptoms, he’s in. But, and I am assuming you have more common sense than you’ve displayed, regulating who comes in absolutely controls how much risk we have of infection coming in. No, that doesn’t stop ALL of it, but it definitely stops some (like the Chinese guy carrying a satchel full of various pathogens). NOT doing so provides an open door to anyone trying to escape infectious hot zones (and may be infected themselves) from coming in and causing tragedy.

Again, if you can’t stop leading your army of strawmen on your campaign of disinformation, discussions can continue. If not, why not just leave me out of it?