(1) Bret Stephens' photo makes him look like a USA Network knockoff of Hugh Grant. (2) Bret Stephens is using the "decidedly non-mainstream Joe Rogan podcast" to trash Vox. (3) Bret Stephens is, in true Bret Stephens form, is leaning into "the Lab-Leak Theory" rather than noting Tom Cotton argued that a deliberate release shouldn't be ruled out and that "common sense is his guide", rather than any evidence or scientific evaluation. (4) Bret Stephens is, in true Bret Stephens form, sidestepping the fact that the "lab leak theory" was pushed by Republicans as a reason to attack China, rather than help Americans: And he’s stepping up his rhetoric too, asserting that “senior leaders in Beijing made a deliberate and calculated decision” to keep air travel flowing out of China. The Chinese government, he said, “did not want to see a relative diminution of their power as against the rest of the world, especially against the United States.” So Bret Stephens, in archetypal "why the fuck is anyone reading the New York Times anymore" fashion, is attempting to make this a media problem, rather than discussing how the Republicans were so busy looking for a tank to shove their dicks into that they didn't even bother to close travel to and from China until a month after Tom Cotton decided that it was maybe/probably a deliberate release of a biological warfare agent. Cotton wants American citizens to be able to sue Chinese officials for the economic and public health fallout from the pandemic and move production of key medical supplies to the United States from China. He says he will seek to attach that legislation to upcoming must-pass coronavirus bills, which could have the Senate debating China’s culpability in a matter of weeks.
The dumb thing tho, as you passively-aggressively suggest in your tagging, is that the man's got a point. It's the WHY of the point that's so fucking galling. On the one hand we had twelve years of neoconservativism followed by eight years of neoliberalism followed by eight years of neoconservativism followed by eight years of neoliberalism followed by four years of fascist populism and while everyone making under $50k a year knows inherently that the only real difference is whether you consider foreign as well as domestic corporations to count more than people, the Acela crowd views the world in exactly two ways: - science and institutions are to be trusted OR - science and institutions are to be trusted if and only if they parrot neoconservative ideology. Brett Stephens doesn't give the first fuck about authority. He has no respect for science. There is no aspect of consensus knowledge that appeals to him in the slightest. He's a Bell Curve man, a twist-the-numbers-til-they-scream ex-post-facto truthiness man whose ideology will happily parrot any facts that may align and malign any facts that don't. So in this one instance? Where the neoliberal faith in multinational NGOs was demonstrably misplaced? The fact that he's making hay on this like he has ever given the first FUCK about facts is pretty goddamn galling. More like what you were looking for?
Yes, vintage. Thanks. Upon reflection the tag is inept. I was trying to be cute, but I #CaptainHindsight should have used Edit: Tom cotton would be the blind squirrel here, not Brett Stephens, as he said something that was getting at a tooth through no fault or foresight of his own.