Everybody knows the favorite participation sport in Washington is spinning — taking a kernel of truth and making it look really good for you and your party.
They all do it. And often it’s just a case of stating facts in a way that shines light on the parts helpful to your story. I guess everyone does it to some degree in our lives. We are all heroes of our own story.
But sometimes in our Nation’s Capital, it becomes something very sinister…
Let’s look at COVID response for just one example.
President Trump initiated Operation Warp Speed to galvanize the resources of the federal government into finding a cure or a vaccine in the shortest possible time. We can disagree about what happened when COVID was discovered in 2020, but given the information he had, and the advice of “experts,” Trump did what he did. I think destroying the economy of our nation and costing millions of jobs and countless thousands of lives was a mistake, but I sit here with the benefit of hindsight (although I was skeptical from the beginning).
The Trump Administration brought the COVID vaccines to the public in record time. The nation demanded action and he acted — right or wrong.
President Biden has wrongly stated that he brought the vaccine to the country. He has also stated that the Trump Administration sat on their hands and did nothing.
Now, Politico, the house organ of the Democrats in Washington has a completely different spin on that. Go figure..
The Trump administration pressured the FDA to authorize unproven treatments for Covid-19 and the first Covid-19 vaccines on an accelerated timeline, according to a House report released Wednesday.https://t.co/aJlYeu4oY0
— POLITICO (@politico) August 24, 2022
It’s not often that you can watch them completely change the direction of the spin in real time. It’s dizzying, but very interesting. Now, just for fun, they blame it on Trump wanting the vaccine in time for the election. Nonsense!
And, as an aside, the Biden Administration is bringing out a new variant of the COVID vaccine with NO human trials — only trials on mice. Given the wide-ranging side effects, including death, of the current vaccines, you’d think they’d be more careful!
Bill McCarthy blogs at ALPAC.
