Tuesday, May 19, 2020

Kaus-Reynolds with a vengence*


"Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies" -- Honore de Balzac

The operators demand ever bigger machinery even as their actions turn deadly.

Grandma Killer: Andrew Cuomo Murdered 5300 Elderly New Yorkers But He's a Hero Because He's a Liberal Psychopath

As you probably know, Andrew Cuomo ordered elderly persons infected with coronavirus back into their nursing homes, where they could -- and did -- infect all the other nursing home residents and kill thousands of them. He did this deliberately. Why?

It's hard to think of a reason why -- these people could have been isolated in the thousands of unused temporary hospital berths built to... well, to keep coronavirus patients isolated.

Instead he ordered them back into nursing homes, to infect other people of a very high risk of dying from the disease.

And die they did.

By the thousands.

All the while, as thousands were dying, the press just could not pour enough praise on Andrew Cuomo.

He killed them.

If people have "blood on their hands" for permitting businesses to reopen -- how can it be that Andrew Cuomo is not the murderer of 5300 extremely at-risk people by ordering the infected to be crowded together with them?

Andrew Cuomo and New York State realize they have a huge scandal brewing -- if the media ever feels like reporting easily-discovered facts.

It looks like New York State is taking pains to correct its error.

And by correct its error, I mean -- fudge the numbers to hide the numbers killed.

Governor Nipsy Cuomo Explains Why He Sentenced Over 5000 Elderly Citizens to Certain Death: "Older people, vulnerable people, are going to die from this virus. That is going to happen."

He just won't take responsibility for having sent covid-infected people back to nursing homes to infect everyone else. He begins sputtering out an Eric "Otter" Stratton series of rhetorical questions about who's really to blame.

Andrew Cuomo Reveals The Danger Of Praising ‘Tone’ And ‘Norms’

This reveals something interesting about the roles of tone and norms in politics and governance. Critics of Trump’s hyperbolic rhetorical style and willingness to say things that offend them seem to think that good tone and maintenance of norms by a politician indicates he is pursuing positive policies and in control of the situation, but this is often not the case. In fact, a polished tone more often elides failures than it symbolizes success.

Here’s an example. Would Barack Obama have ever called the press “the enemy of the American people”? Certainly not. But would his administration spy on journalists? Absolutely, and it did. Would Obama cackle about political opponents going to jail? Not a chance. Would his administration try to send political opponents to jail? Yup.

To put it bluntly, Cuomo has not been an effective governor during this crisis, but he has played one on TV. At least in terms of early public opinion, that was enough.
Ben Rhodes was absolutely right about the shallowness of the journalists assigned to important beats by prestigious news organizations:

The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns… They literally know nothing
They cover policy like they do politics and they cover politics as theater.

Ace:

The leftwing members of the Professional Managerial Class (including, obviously, hyperpartisan "NeverTrump" Democrats) ... never look at policy outcomes, only "tone" and "norms:" that's how you get a ton of dead bodies while babbling about how well he presents himself at press conferences.
The Cuomo brothers made for good theater. They bashed Trump, issued dire warnings of impending doom, posed as defenders of the vulnerable, bantered like frat boys. Fredo even suffered in his basement – quarantined after he caught the Corona virus.

It was all lies, a series of performances, a ploy for TV ratings, for poll numbers, maybe a spot on the 2020 ticket.

CNN missed one of the biggest stories of our time. It played out under their noses in NYC. Instead they created “The COVID Chronicles with the Cuomo Bros". Everyone had a great time except for the senior citizens who suffered and died alone and their grieving families.

CNN's handling of this story should be an an extinction-level event. They did not just fail to cover the real story: they helped cover it up. Walter Duranty would be proud.

And, like Duranty and Stalin, CNN and the Cuomo brothers will get away with it. Their “competitors” will probably give them prestigious awards.

*The Kaus-Reynolds paradox

1. A government agency fails.
2. When it finally ‘fesses up, the failure is immediately consigned to the memory hole.
3. The consequences of its failure are then used as a justification for giving that agency more power over ordinary citizens who had nothing to do with the failed policies and botched operations.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It's OK - Older people tend to vote Republican.