Media critic: Why Is the Press Parroting Beijing?
“US-based media companies and journalists” are “pushing Communist China’s propaganda and disinformation about COVID-19,” former GOP lawmaker Thaddeus G. McCotter charges at American Greatness. Could it be that, in addition to the usual ideological groupthink of the press, there is at work the same fear of losing access and profits that drives many other elite US institutions to kowtow to Beijing? For example, “The Washington Post and The New York Times, among others, have had a business relationship with China Watch, an offshoot of China Daily, a Chinese-government newspaper” for years. Such facts cast a cold light on these outlets’ motives in “attacking those citing [the virus’] origins in Communist China” and even “claiming “anti-Asian bias with little or no evidence” — just at Beijing wanted. “Democracy dies in darkness,” indeed.
From the right: The FBI Was Just Corrupt
In a new report, Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz examined 42 FBI applications to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which decides on wiretaps of US citizens — and, National Review’s David Harsanyi fumes, “found a total of 390 problems in 39 of the 42 applications,” including “unverified, inaccurate or inadequately supported facts.” You would think the story would “pique the interest of mainstream journalists,” yet The New York Times dismissed the scandal as part of “a broader pattern of sloppiness.” That’s probably because Horowitz’s December IG report criticized the FBI’s FISA applications for wiretapping Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. If the investigation hadn’t been directed against an ex-Trump adviser, the liberal media would probably frame it not as “sloppiness,” but what it really is: an “abuse of power.”
Pandemic watch: No, Docs Weren’t Prophets
The media are portraying the Trump administration as “out of touch with early warnings from medical experts” about the direness of the coronavirus — even though, Kalev Leetaru observes at RealClearPolitics, “the administration’s initial reassurances” aligned with the medical community’s assessments at the time. For example, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention expert (and media darling) Dr. Anthony Fauci’s “public statements essentially mirrored those of the administration”: Both “repeatedly downplayed the virus’ potential impact on the US.” Fauci “was still downplaying the risks” as late as Feb. 18. Of course, he “finally changed his views” — but those views have always dovetailed with the administration’s.
Foreign desk: The Eurozone’s Coronavirus Follies
The coronavirus wreaks havoc everywhere it spreads. But in Europe, Matthew Lynn observes at Spectator USA, it’s also threatening “a currency crisis.” Witness the Continent’s ferocious debate over whether to issue “ ‘coronabonds’ — a joint eurozone financial instrument that could raise money to help deal with the crisis.” Whatever the upsides (immediate help to ailing nations) and downsides (more debt), the “bigger problem” is that “the eurozone has now gotten itself into a position where every crisis quickly turns into a currency crisis.” While the United States, Britain and Japan can choose to print money, “none of the eurozone countries have that flexibility.” Frugal, economically mighty Germany can borrow for itself, but weak economies in Southern Europe can’t. “As soon as there is a huge external event — such as this one — they all start arguing about how to pay for it.” The result: “Across the eurozone,” the response to crises “is always far slower than it should be.”
Monk: Why You Can’t Dial 1-800-CONFESS
Christians stuck in lockdown might wonder if they can dial up a priest to confess. Sorry, “it won’t work,” informs Father Dominic Langevin at First Things. As a sacrament, confession is supposed to be a “salvific conversion,” and it “cannot occur through electronic means,” because it “requires both joint physical presence and live, interpersonal action between the penitent and priest-confessor.” Plus, given widespread hacking and surveillance, phoned confessions “would also threaten penitents’ right to confess privately.” Coronavirus notwithstanding, “it is rash to contemplate inventing an electronic form of confession when we know that others are listening in.”
— Compiled by Karl Salzmann & Sohrab Ahmari
