"Mistakes" that always go in one direction. //
the U.S. “took the lead” in infections and deaths only because we are actually honest about our numbers. This is especially true of infections, in which we lead the world in total testing by far. The more you test, the more positives you get. That does not mean we actually lead the world in infections. There’s a reason our death rate is so much lower than other countries. It’s not because we have a magic serum (although our care is better and more prevalent). It’s because we are more accurately reporting infections, which lowers the mortality numbers.
By framing the U.S. as uniquely failing, 60 Minutes is doing China’s bidding, something CBS and others have been more than willing to do over the course of this pandemic. Does anyone really think China, with no therapeutic, was suddenly able to cut their domestic cases to zero? //
The biggest lie told here wasn’t that, though. It was that Pompeo pushed a “debunked” theory that the virus was man-made. In fact, Pompeo did the opposite, proposing it was an accident, something there is plenty of evidence for. The bat in question was not proven to have been sold in any of the markets in Wuhan because the closest native habit was over 600 miles away. Meanwhile, the Wuhan lab was studying coronaviruses in bats at the time. Incompetence and bad lab practices seem far more likely than speculation about wet markets at this point. //
Morgan Ortagus
✔
@statedeptspox
.@CBSNews intentionally misled its viewers with a report Sunday evening that failed to accurately portray the clear intent of Secretary Pompeo's remarks to Martha Raddatz on ABC News regarding the origin of the virus in Wuhan, China.
Morgan Ortagus
✔
@statedeptspox
This reporting — intending to deceive — seeks to obfuscate the Secretary’s core point: the Chinese Communist Party continues to refuse calls for transparency, thereby compounding its cover-up, and further risking American lives. //
CBS lied here, and it wasn’t an accident. One of the chief pieces of Chinese propaganda going around is to claim the U.S. is falsely blaming the communists for the spread of the virus. By propagating the notion that Pompeo claimed the virus was man-made, something we haven’t seen evidence of yet, they might as well be taking orders directly from Chinese dictator Xi.
Our media are disgraceful, and these “mistakes” always go in one direction. That’s not a coincidence.
