Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/05/19/the-lancet-fact-checks-trump.html
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You mean the failed Lancet? Nobody reads that any more. /s
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I would be happy if the news media would stop reporting on what President Trump says, and instead documented only what his administration does. Too much attention is being given to his moronic tweets about hydroxychloroquine and Obamagate while real harm is being done by people like McConnell, Mnuchin, and Miller.
The signal is getting lost in the noise.
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Why do they have to say “This statement is factually incorrect”?
Speak to his base and say “Yo, this dude just straight up lied. He probs didn’t know cuz he ain’t readin’ what we give 'em.”
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This is all part of his “blame China” strategy to distract Americans from his regime’s irresponsibility and failures in addressing the pandemic. The WHO has its problems, but they’re less about supposed domination by China and more about it being as much a diplomatic body (part of the eternally hamstrung UN) as a scientific one – it caved to pressure from much smaller nations during the ebola outbreak of 2014 and didn’t act quickly enough, for example. China has also been a bad actor, of course, but in practise Il Douche is more prone to emulate them than criticise them when it comes to covering up the stats and bad news.
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Yeah I don’t understand why the Trump administration is making up stuff about China when there is literally reported truths about Bejing’s attempts to coverup Covid.
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Trump is undoubtedly trying to blame China and the WHO for the US situation. However, people’s dislike for Trump shouldn’t be a magic pass for either China or the WHO. There are serious questions that need answering, particularly about whether the meeting between President Xi and the WHO DG in January led to a delay in publicising the risks of Covid. China also appears to have taken steps to buy masks and other medical supplies worldwide whilst claiming Covid didn’t spread, which, if true, would be intolerable.
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In the end, it’s more about his portraying himself to the Know-Nothing 27% as a populist hero who’s fighting the NWO. Also, he has to pretend that he never praised China in the early months of the pandemic, so he’s doubling down with this narrative in the hope that people will forget.
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It was the local government, not Beijing. And it pales into insignificance compared to ongoing US federal government cover ups, dissimulation, lies, misdirection, bullshit, racist name calling and profound, seemingly permanent failure.
The more shit the current Washington regime throws at China the more blows back in their face internationally.
Nobody trusts China, and then suddenly everybody trusts them a whole lot more than the US when it comes to pandemic management.
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“Projection vomiting”, as it were.
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This would only matter if the corrections were given the same newsworthiness as the accusations. No one who needs to see the corrections will. Only the accusation mattered, and Trump knows that.
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As if any facts have meaning anymore.
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Exactly! That ship has sailed…and sunk.
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“• The Lancet says Trump’s letter contains ‘factually incorrect’ details.”
So, what are you going to believe (1) Doctor Trump’s infallible pronouncements or (2) the senseless drivel in an 200-year-old peer-reviewed medical journal? Tell me who you voted for in 2016 and I’ll tell which way you answered this with at least 90% accuracy.
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“What ship? That ship never existed, and you’re disgusting for saying it did. And it never sunk!”
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I believe that he makes shit up instead of using the truth in part because he simply can’t remember the truth.
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The Lancet notes that they did not, as Trump falsely said, comment on the coronavirus crisis in late December 2019.
But in January, they did comment on “the coronavirus crisis in late December 2019”
I bet this is where the mistake was made. Some staffer writing a draft of Trump’s letter wrote that the Lancet commented on “the coronavirus crisis in (of) December 2019” and it got turned into, “In December 2019 the Lancet commented on the coronavirus crisis” and it weaved its way into the Trump’s letter.
Obviously Trump didn’t write a single word of that paper, it’s organized and way too long.
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Fudging data and making deliberately false accusations to prop up your ego and public image will not make the pandemic go away.
Reality has a way of prevailing in the end.
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I would be happy if they reported what he said - in the context of fact-checking it. Because then all of Trump’s statements would be bracketed by “Trump falsely claimed…”
Because it ain’t a lie if you have no idea what the truth is.
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Under normal circumstances I would agree with you, but Trump isn’t reality-adjacent anymore and 100% of what he says is straight-up driving trollies. Every time he opens his mouth it’s like he’s asking “So… when did you stop beating your wife?” and every time the media corrects him, they pump the bellows and stoke his fires. We’ve got to stop feeding him oxygen.
As a bonus, I don’t think there’s anything that makes Trump angrier than being ignored. The more unbalanced he becomes, the more likely he is to lose the support of moderate conservatives.
Supposing, of course, that there are any of those left in the wild.
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