David Mamet had a famous saying that is often cited. Essentially he said: ‘in order for left-wing partisans and ideologues to continue advancing their agenda, they must pretend not to know things.’ CTH calls this “The Mamet Principle.” No where is that quote more clearly showcased than with two media interviews of Dr. Deborah Birx today.
CNN’s Jake Tapper and NBC’s Chuck Todd both pretend not to know the guidelines and gateways for a phase-one reopening of the U.S. economy. Both pundits fabricate information purposefully and with specific intent.
When the original guidelines were rolled out by the White House COVID-19 task force, the administration was clear to say how the guidelines were created for the state governors to use in coordination with “state and local health officials.”
A key part of the White House guidelines was the “gateway to reopening”; which included a recommendation of a 14-day period where the virus tracking showed diminished spread. However, the guidelines were emphasized to be driven by “local and state health departments.” That’s the part where Tapper and Todd intentionally obfuscate the issue.
The White House guidelines to the state governors were intentionally structured around coordination with county health officials/county health departments. The reasoning was simple, a state with 40 counties may have passed the gateway hurdle in 38 of the 40 counties, but that does NOT mean the entire state has not passed the phase-one gateway.
“The guidance allows each state governor to modify their phased response by county depending on the Virus impact. Some counties may be in phase-one, while other counties may be in phase two or three. The state and local public health officials will be responsible for monitoring the virus impact on an ongoing basis.” (link)
Here’s a specific example. There are 67 counties in the state of Florida. Sixty-five of those counties may have already passed through the phase-one gateway; meaning they show declining infection rates for 14-days, and/or had little impact. Two counties like Dade, and Broward may not have yet passed the gateway guideline. It would be ridiculous for 65 (mostly rural) counties to sit and wait for one or two (mostly urban) counties to achieve the same level of virus containment before re-opening their local economy.
It would be ridiculous for a State Governor like Ron DeSantis to hold back sixty-five counties while waiting on the other one or two to catch up.
That is specifically why the White House guidance emphasized the local health departments coordinating with the state governors.
It does not take every county in the entire state to pass the gateway before the governor, any governor, can start giving guidelines for reopening. Nor is it accurate to say that “no state has passed the gateway for phase-one.”
Factually, every state has some counties that are well beyond the phase-one guidelines.
Conversely, many counties within individual states may already be in phase-three; however, that doesn’t mean the entire state is in phase-3 based on the guidelines.
If you were to follow the false logic claimed by Jake Tapper and Chuck Todd, you could argue as soon as a state has a single county at phase-3 then the state has achieved the phase-3 gateway.
Watch how in the interviews both Tapper and Todd make the false claim that “no state has passed the phase-one reopening guideline”… They are lying, and they know it.
Both Tapper and Todd are political operatives, ideologues within media, who are advancing an agenda in an effort to do as much harm as many people as possible. This is not an accident; and yes their harm is specific, purposeful and with intent.
The far-left, which includes most mainstream media now, are rage-filled and dangerous in disposition due to the rabidity of their partisanship. If they were not, they wouldn’t be consistently lying. It really is that simple.