Thread by @Scott_Maxwell

I read this piece yesterday and didn’t comment on it immediately – because I wanted to think on it.
I did. And I decided this piece isn’t bad because it’s so hackishly partisan (which it is).
It’s bad because it’s just so damn lazy.
It’s just spoon-fed.
nationalreview.com/2020/05/corona…

The author basically says right up top:
He talked with the governor and the governor’s people – and all those people agree the governor’s great.

Stop the presses.

It cherry-picks communities that didn’t have many COVID cases – and completely glosses over places like Miami and Broward that are nationally known hot spots.

It also gives short shrift to communities - like Orlando - where local officials shut down their communities in the face of *inaction* from DeSantis.

(In the second-to-last graf, there’s a passing admission that “perhaps" county-level lockdowns made a difference.)

Orange County's own mayor said he was genuinely perplexed by the lack of action and communication from the governor's office in this crisis - that they acted without any guidance from the governor.
And really, as we've reported before, it was Disney that made the first big move.

And somehow, the piece never even mentions the word “unemployment.”
Literally not a single time – even though Florida’s system has been train wreck of epic proportions, denying and delaying benefits to working-class families living on the edge.

And it conveniently omits all the disturbing details about data that this administration has hidden from the public.

All under the auspice of saying that DeSantis is owed an apology.

I do think that some of the national coverage has been extreme or unfair – to both DeSantis and Florida.

People gathering on the beaches aren’t the same thing as a zombie apocalypse. And national media are often quick to pull the "Flori-duh" trigger.

But South Florida is still battling serious infection.

And more than 1 million callers faced an *average* wait time of 99 minutes at the state’s unemployment office just 3 days ago.

I understand the governor wants to change that narrative.

I’m just a little surprised he was able to find someone so willing to play stenographer to that goal … in such a lazy and naked way.
(-end-)