The New York Times writing that President Joe Biden’s March 12 speech contained “exaggerations” and “misleading” statements made me wonder.
How would it read if the speaker were Donald Trump?
The selection of words is a key part of duplicity reporting. Similar meaning words can create much different perceptions. Consider the words The New York Times selected for President Biden’s COVID-19 speech.
“Exaggerate” is “to represent something as being larger, or greater, better, or worse, than it really is” with synonyms of “overstate” and “overemphasize.”
“Misleading” is “to lead in a wrong direction, often by deliberate deceit,” with synonyms of “deceitful, deceptive.”
See the difference in these used for President Biden and the one used for former President Trump of “lying” is “telling a false statement” with synonyms of “untruthful, dishonest? Neither do I. Yet the miniscule differences between their synonyms can get magnified into a character issue when duplicity reporting substitutes exaggerate, mislead and lying. How about “gaffes?”
A David Letterman routine of a Top 10 list can be utilized to illustrate how interchangeable are the synonyms for “exaggeration” or “misleading” and “lying” for classifying the 10 entries — and how different the perceptions are when using them for a teleprompter speech by Mr. Biden versus one that Mr. Trump spontaneously shouted over the noise of his waiting helicopter.
— The New York Times reported that President Biden “exaggerated” by saying former President Trump met the arrival of COVID with “silence” until March 12. Omitted is that it took the World Health Organization that long to declare it a “pandemic” although WHO did not visit the Wuhan lab until January 2021.
In January 2020, during impeachment efforts, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was studying gun violence and racial issues, and the National Institute of Health, the effects of alcohol on monkeys and the average weights of gays and lesbians, although Dr. Anthony Fauci had helped fund the research in the lab in Wuhan during the Obama administration. Acting alone, Mr. Trump protected U.S. citizens by prohibiting flights from countries with high infection rates.
Same question for all 10: Was Mr. Biden’s “silence” an “exaggeration” or an “untruth?”
— President Biden’s “silence” omitted that in February 2020, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Mayor Bill de Blasio encouraged people in San Francisco and New York to socialize, and there was the hypocrisy of labeling Mr. Trump a “racist” for calling it the “Chinese Virus” while calling subsequent ones the “South African” and “Brazilian” virus rather than COVID-20 and -21.
— The New York Times reported that President Biden “exaggerated” by listing the number of deaths from COVID as being greater than the total from World War I, World War II and Vietnam combined, since this only included battlefield deaths but greatly under reported the total deaths from those three wars. Sound like “telling a false statement?” How about blaming all those deaths on Mr. Trump?
The New York Times reported that Mr. Biden was “misleading” by saying Mr. Trump did not order sufficient doses of vaccine since Mr. Trump ordered 800 million doses. Really?
Was President Biden’s omitting any mention of Mr. Trump’s creating warp speed that created the structure for the vaccine to be created in record time “deceptive” or “dishonest?”
— Previously, was Mr. Biden’s saying on his inauguration on Jan. 20, 2021, there was no vaccination after he received a vaccination on Jan. 1, 2021 “deceitful,” “untruthful?”
— Was President Biden saying that on inauguration day only 8% had the first vaccine and his goal was a million doses a day — without mentioning that there were 1.5 million doses a day already being given — “deceptive?”
— Was President Biden saying if people behaved that maybe they could have a barbecue in their backyard to celebrate the Fourth of July — while omitting that in many states, such as Florida and Texas,that is already happening today — “deceptive” or “dishonest?”
— President Biden saying that by May 1, every person would be on a “waiting list” sounds good, feels good and is meaningless as waiting lists are controlled by states. “Deceptive” or “dishonest?”
— Political commentator John Harwood raved about Mr. Biden’s empathy for all the hardships caused by the closing of private businesses, schools and other places, while omitting that Mr. Biden and his party caused the hardships by closing these facilities. Sound like the boy on trial for murdering his parents asking for sympathy because he was an orphan?
Compare The New York Times’ coverage with the one-word review of President Biden’s COVID-19 approach by the governor of a successful state in dealing with COVID, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida: “Insane.”
Duplicity pandemics are illustrated by President Biden’s speech only dealing with the U.S. actions since his inauguration.
Omitted were President Trump’s warp speed program’s successes versus the rest of the world where now, for example, Germany’s lockdown includes grocery stores, Ireland is on level 5 and Paris is on lockdown.
Another omission is the elephant-in-the-room: China.
What has the country who dug bats out of caves, transported them to what is now called the Biological Weapons Lab, and permitted the resulting Chinese virus to be exported everywhere except their own country, been up to? In a word: acquisitions.
China’s gaining control by loaning money for the maintenance of governments while private businesses were shuttered, includes Sri Lanka, Papua New Guinea, Pakistan, Kenya, South Africa, Maldives and Egypt, where their connections by sea or road suggest a modern version of China’s silk road.
In the U.S., despite the projected GDP growth of 6% created by the red states remaining open, the Biden-Pelosi team is rushing to join the silk road as a debtor nation to China by passing a huge unfunded spending bill before the opening of the blue states makes it unnecessary.
Sadly only 10% is directed to the pandemic, and its sister bill will greatly raise taxes, hurting even the red states.
Duplicity pandemics are created by politicians.
Brent Zepke
The author lives in Santa Barbara.
