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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Poor, Poor Deborah Birx

Poor, Poor Deborah Birx

by @heymistermix.com|  August 2, 20207:14 pm| 113 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

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Nancy Pelosi is calling out Birx in no uncertain terms, and of course Birx deserves it. Like everyone else who walked into the White House as (perhaps) a competent professional, she’ll walk out with her reputation in tatters. Her dumb happy talk in April, her silence when Trump recommended shoving light up your ass to cure the virus, and her almost certain backing down with Trump in private makes Pelosi’s judgment that she’s “the worst” richly deserved.

I had never heard of Birx before the task force briefings, and as soon as I saw that she was part of them, I assumed that she was incompetent and/or compromised, because who else would work for Trump? Trump’s “testing czar” at HHS has a checkered past, and of course he fucked up from bean to cup. Only someone with a solid gold reputation and bureaucratic infighting skills like Fauci can survive Trump with his reputation intact. Everyone else leaves Trump’s orbit a lesser person than when they came in, and Birx is learning from an experience that any reasonably intelligent person could have predicted.

Perhaps I’d have some sympathy for Birx if the pandemic had happened in 2017 and she hadn’t seen the pattern of Trump compromising then throwing away people who work for him. But it’s 2020, and as the X-rays clearly show, this bone was broken long ago.

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Reader Interactions

113Comments

  1. 1.

    debbie

    August 2, 2020 at 7:22 pm

    this bone was broken long ago.

    Not just broken, smashed and crushed to a pulp. NBC news just now covered parents protesting for schools to reopen. The report included an interview with a father who said that the damage done to his child by no face to face teaching was worse than the virus “in our estimation.” I guarantee that fucker couldn’t even define the word “estimation.”

  2. 2.

    Pigdog

    August 2, 2020 at 7:24 pm

    Doesn’t she have some Fundigelical connections too?

  3. 3.

    artem1s

    August 2, 2020 at 7:27 pm

    @Pigdog:

    Doesn’t she have some Fundigelical connections too?

    Pence connections, I think

  4. 4.

    topclimber

    August 2, 2020 at 7:27 pm

    I am willing to give her the chance to redeem herself.  Maybe she can be helpful convincing  some MAGAts to choose public health over blood and soil , since she served Dear Leader so faithfully.

    We need to reach out so almost all Americans are on board with social health measures and widespread vaccination.

  5. 5.

    topclimber

    August 2, 2020 at 7:30 pm

    @debbie: Parents are routinely expected to trade off the benefits of education for the safety of their children. I say that if the chance of a child dying be COVID-19 is less than or equal to that of being slaughtered in a school shooting, FULL STEAM AHEAD!

  6. 6.

    Chetan Murthy

    August 2, 2020 at 7:31 pm

    @debbie:

    The report included an interview with a father who said that the damage done to his child by no face to face teaching was worse than the virus “in our estimation.”

    Fucking MSM with their fucking malpractice.  The issue isn’t the damage to your little pumpkin, you shitbird; it’s the dead and crippled teachers, staff, adminstrators, etc, at the damn school.  You.  Shitbird.  The MSM needs to be asking that question: “is your child’s education for the next year worth a life?  How many lives?  How many crippled educators?”

  7. 7.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    August 2, 2020 at 7:32 pm

    Everyone else leaves Trump’s orbit a lesser person than when they came in, and Birx is learning from an experience that any reasonably intelligent person could have predicted.

    You can’t get just a little bit pregnant when you fuck with trumpism. I originally typed “Mattis could have told her”, but I don’t know if Mattis gets how tainted his own reputation is.

  8. 8.

    Barbara

    August 2, 2020 at 7:34 pm

    I read an interview with Fauci (I have read so many things by now I don’t even remember where), but he noted that Birx was more “political” than he was, and I assumed by that he meant that she was more willing to curry favor with those in charge.  However, her whole career has been served in government as an infectious disease specialist, and Obama appointed her to serve in important positions — she is not Robert Redfield, in other words, whose position at CDC is totally the result of political favoritism.

    ISTM she knew Trump wanted good news so she continually put a good news spin on the data.  To say that the U.S. was like Italy was completely unjustified.  New York and the Northeast were like Italy.  We aren’t unified, not in policy and not in lots of other ways.  Most of us here sort of understand that, but the virus proves it.  Italians — albeit with grumbling and malcontents — came together, not just in the north where the disease ravaged elderly people, but in the south where it had not become nearly as prevalent.  So, if that had been us, Florida and Texas would have shut down as hard as New York and stayed shut for longer.  They didn’t.

  9. 9.

    debbie

    August 2, 2020 at 7:35 pm

    @Chetan Murthy:

    That’s pretty much what I was screaming at the television. I was in the middle of cutting up a cantaloupe and had to step away from the very sharp knife.

  10. 10.

    HinTN

    August 2, 2020 at 7:35 pm

    this bone was broken long ago

    Poor poor pitiful me, lord have mercy on me.

    Yeah, right.

  11. 11.

    HinTN

    August 2, 2020 at 7:37 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Sadly, he does not.

  12. 12.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    August 2, 2020 at 7:37 pm

    @Chetan Murthy: Could also be his child that would be among the dead.  He doesn’t seem to include that in his “estimation”.

    One of the reasons we reopened here in California was the media spending a lot of time covering this fools with a “both sides” have a valid POV.

  13. 13.

    kindness

    August 2, 2020 at 7:37 pm

    Inevitably one of Trump’s minions will find it convenient to Blame Birx for something or other.  Of course Trump will toss her under the bus when that time comes.  That is Trump’s management MO.

  14. 14.

    M. Bouffant

    August 2, 2020 at 7:38 pm

    She’s a nut.

    Anita Smith is now a consultant within PEPFAR to Deborah Birx, a physician and ambassador-at-large who oversees the program’s estimated $5 billion annual budget. Birx is also a former board member of Children’s AIDS Fund International and served until she was hired by the CDC in 2005, a PEPFAR spokesman said. (The organization received PEPFAR grants between 2004 and 2008 despite an early evaluation from experts who deemed it “not suitable for funding,” according to media reports at the time.)

    Smith’s hiring earlier this year was part of a strategy to improve prevention programs aimed at preteen girls, including support for “decision-making around whether to delay, abstain or protect,” according to a statement from Birx’s office.

    “The administration is trying to put sweeteners in there for religious conservatives,” said Heather Boonstra, director of public policy at the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit focused on reproductive health. “It’s not as if these concepts are a problem if they are included as part of a whole array of programs. The concern is that these changes are opening the door for a greater number of programs that focus solely on abstinence.”

  15. 15.

    M. Bouffant

    August 2, 2020 at 7:39 pm

    @M. Bouffant: What’s wrong w/ the blockquote function?

  16. 16.

    RSA

    August 2, 2020 at 7:43 pm

    @M. Bouffant:

    She’s a nut.

    If you put a couple of line breaks between quoted and non-quoted material, things work as you’d expect. (If that’s the question you’re asking.)

  17. 17.

    Mary G

    August 2, 2020 at 7:43 pm

    She’s a prime example of Rick Wilson’s motto: Everything Trump Touches dies. I read her wiki and she seems like she was a real scientist who did a lot of work on PEPFAR and was appointed to a world AIDS ambassador position by Obama and John Kerry. But she sold her soul to keep modeling expensive scarves on TV with the farce that is the US coronavirus response under Twitler. It was when she said nothing to him when he suggested putting bleach or UV light into someone’s lungs that she lost all respect from me.

  18. 18.

    geg6

    August 2, 2020 at 7:47 pm

    @Mary G:

    Same here.  She just sat there with that rictus of a grin and said nothing.  She’s awful and can’t be trusted.  I knew that, though because I knew she was a religious nut.  Scientists can sometimes be really stupid.  We have a faculty member, a PhD in chemistry, who believes in creationism.  What do you do with these people?

  19. 19.

    Chief Oshkosh

    August 2, 2020 at 7:48 pm

    The whole bleach and light up your ass thing didn’t bother me at all. She knew that nearly everyone (nearly) is too smart to take that seriously. Better to die on another hill.

    Problem is, she apparently is not willing to hold ANY hill.

  20. 20.

    Chetan Murthy

    August 2, 2020 at 7:51 pm

    @Chief Oshkosh:

    Problem is, she apparently is not willing to hold ANY hill.

    I remember years and years ago, Josh Marshall was talking about the difference between hacks and wonks.  A hack will take any position (OK, OK, within reason); a wonk will only take positions that agree with their reasoned-out views.  Birx -pretends- to be a wonk, but she’s really a hack.

    That’s all there is to it.

    ETA: It’s not about what you -know-.  She might know lots of stuff.  It’s about what you’re willing to -do-.  And she’s simply not a wonk: she’ll do anything to stay near the levers of power.  Anything.

  21. 21.

    Spinoza Is My Co-pilot

    August 2, 2020 at 7:53 pm

    Being an obvious Trump lickspittle and thus doing a shit job on the pandemic from her position was overdetermined by the fact that Birx is a fucking evangelical Christianist.

    As is Redfield, Trump’s head of the CDC, though he’s been a bit more under the public radar than Birx. My wife has spent the latter part of her 40+ year RN career as an infectious disease specialist, and has found the reputational damage to the once-highly-esteemed CDC under that asshole’s “leadership” to be dispiriting and even enraging. Night and day compared with her collaboration with the CDC during the Ebola crisis in 2014-2016. Redfield is despised by career staff at the CDC.

  22. 22.

    majii

    August 2, 2020 at 7:53 pm

    @debbie: I’m a retired high school teacher.  For years, I watched folks denigrate and demean teachers, thinking anyone could teach.  I suspect that the parents who are pushing for in-person schooling have had serious problems doing teachers’ jobs.  I also suspect that as soon as the virus is under control, they’ll go back to saying teaching is easy, anyone can do it, and teachers make too much.  Bottom line: they’re tired of having to teach their own children.

  23. 23.

    joel hanes

    August 2, 2020 at 7:54 pm

    @topclimber:

    if the chance of a child dying be COVID-19 is less than or equal to that of being slaughtered in a school shooting, FULL STEAM AHEAD!

    What if I told you that, if your child physically attends school for six weeks,  the chance of your child suffering permanent heart damage would be 25%, with additional risks for permanent lung damage ?

    I don’t think that estimate is too far off the mark.

  24. 24.

    moops

    August 2, 2020 at 7:54 pm

    She has managed to have Trump ruin her.   She deserved it, in my opinion.   Fauci is on a thin edge at this point.  He has resorted to promising a vaccine by the end of the year.  I think Reverse Midas is going to ruin him as well.

  25. 25.

    Frankensteinbeck

    August 2, 2020 at 7:54 pm

    Only someone with a solid gold reputation and bureaucratic infighting skills like Fauci can survive Trump with his reputation intact.

    Interesting point.  Who has survived Trump with their reputation intact?  Fauci is… managing.  He’s not covered in glory, but he’s achieved ‘The only person in the administration who is probably telling you the truth.’  Sessions’s reputation remained intact.  His reputation is just as an old fashioned, mostly competent and sane white supremacist.  Pence’s reputation as a vacuous idiot whose only personality is a few virulent bigotries remains intact.

  26. 26.

    Geminid

    August 2, 2020 at 7:56 pm

    @Barbara: I got to see New York State Covid-19  restrictions this past week, and they are strict and well enforced. Virginia may have to go to that higher level of social distancing, but it is just not that onerous. And I think that when you kick people out of bars at 10pm, or keep them out altogether, you are doing them a favor.    A state might lose some tax revenue, but it is an insignificant amount compared to medical and human costs.

  27. 27.

    David C

    August 2, 2020 at 7:56 pm

    I served on a panel once and those of us who participated on these panels had the opportunity to meet and get our pictures taken with Giroir. I think he is trying, but is he an expert in logistics and in testing? I think he *can* show more independence since currying favor is not working out too well.

    Fauci is briefed on everything he needs to know, and it shows. He’s built 40 years of bipartisan political capital and that shows in his self-confidence. He’s not political – he just builds relationships with everyone, including politicians. I had the opportunity to be among a group of people briefing him before his Congressional testimony once. He knows how to link achievements to Congressional funding and how to frame activities that are still ongoing and not fully achieved. It was his urging that allowed biodefense (think anthrax and weaponized smallpox) funding to be used for emerging infectious disease, laying a foundation for our current scientific response.

  28. 28.

    joel hanes

    August 2, 2020 at 7:56 pm

    @majii:

    they’re tired of having to teach their own children.

    I’m sure that’s part of it.   But many of them must work, and trying to hold down an essential job and provide 24-hour childcare when one cannot even take the kids to a public playground is grinding many parents into the ground.

  29. 29.

    wvng

    August 2, 2020 at 7:57 pm

    @Mary G: my brother worked for an international non profit that had education and healthcare divisions. They had worked with Birx on projects and he is completely stunned by her performance under Trump. She actually was highly respected.

  30. 30.

    Mary G

    August 2, 2020 at 7:57 pm

    I put this tweet up in an earlier thread, but it just shows her lack of character:

    She went on CNN and they asked her about Nancy SMASH and a FTFNYT piece where they called her a Pollyanna. She said she had tremendous respect for Nancy SMASH then segued right into “it’s unfortunate that the New York Times wrote this article without speaking to me.” She said she had never been called Pollyanish before and everything she has done in her 40-year career is “data driven.”

    The FYFNYT clapped back:

    Yes, we tried again and again to speak with Dr. Birx for this story. When she declined repeatedly, we also sent her detailed questions through a White House spokesman that she also declined to answer, issuing only a general statement which we included in the story. https://t.co/UyCH41sZvI— Michael D. Shear (@shearm) August 2, 2020

  31. 31.

    joel hanes

    August 2, 2020 at 7:57 pm

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    Miller’s reputation as a murderous Nazi seems secure.

  32. 32.

    mrmoshpotato

    August 2, 2020 at 7:58 pm

    I’m sure this sack of shit is fine with the law keeping his pelvis from being baseball batted (Yes. Fuck off.) into dust.

    Lawmaker With COVID: My Health Choices Are Up To Me. Critics: That's What Women Assert. https://t.co/JrmoKzET9Q— The Cheesesteak Guy! (@WorksGrill) August 2, 2020

  33. 33.

    dmsilev

    August 2, 2020 at 7:59 pm

    @Frankensteinbeck: Treasury Secretary Mnuchin. Came in with a reputation of ‘will shovel cash to plutocrats’, seems to have preserved that…

  34. 34.

    MagdaInBlack

    August 2, 2020 at 8:00 pm

    @majii:

    My FIL was a HS teacher for 40 years, I’m familiar with the contempt some people have for teachers. I think that’s showing up in the lack of concern by these same folks, for the teachers or their families.

  35. 35.

    Barbara

    August 2, 2020 at 8:01 pm

    @Frankensteinbeck: Fauci is more direct about the weaknesses of the response and the negative direction of the numbers.  He is trying to walk the tightrope as well, but unlike Birx, he wasn’t willing to give Trump good news.  That’s why he was frozen out.  Maybe in her estimation Birx is containing the damage — thinking that without her willingness to put a happy spin on things the situation would be even worse.  But what difference does it make if Trump listens to Birx only if she tells him lies?  At the very least if she told the truth in public someone would have a chance of hearing it.

  36. 36.

    David C

    August 2, 2020 at 8:03 pm

    @moops: Fauci has always qualified his remarks concerning a vaccine. 66 days between knowing the sequence and a Phase I trial is pretty remarkable, and he estimated 100 days. He’s still extremely well-respected in the scientific community and internally. Everyone knows the position he’s in, and he’s still managing to walk the tightrope.

  37. 37.

    hitchhiker

    August 2, 2020 at 8:05 pm

    I knew she was useless when she said this about trump on March 27th:

    “He’s been so attentive to the scientific literature and the details and the data,” Birx said. “I think his ability to analyze and integrate data that comes out of his long history in business has really been a real benefit during these discussions about medical issues.”

    Utter sycophancy. Dishonest bullshit.

    After that there was nothing she could have done to recover her reputation.

  38. 38.

    terben

    August 2, 2020 at 8:07 pm

    @Chief Oshkosh: Anyone who ‘knows’ that ‘nearly everyone (nearly) is too smart to take that seriously’ is clearly too stupid to be allowed to breathe unsupervised. Anyone who thinks that they can work for this administration and keep their reputation intact is similarly deluded.

  39. 39.

    Cheryl Rofer

    August 2, 2020 at 8:09 pm

    Apparently her record with PEPFAR was pretty good, although one time on Twitter a person I consider reliable sent me a couple of articles about infighting and such there. I didn’t recognize the publication or the author, so I just let it go with the mental notation that not everyone liked Deborah Birx. Which is not unusual in any management position.

    The thing that bothered me most about her was her handling of the models, combined with comments that modeling was her thing, had been at PEPFAR. She said a number of things about the models that indicated to me that she didn’t understand them. She also used the IHME model, where I preferred the Imperial College model. My preference was based on the structure of the model, not the results.

    One way the problems with the IHME model showed up was in smaller uncertainty ranges for predictions further out in time. This is like saying that weather predictions for two weeks out are more likely to be right than predictions for tomorrow. It’s a sign that something’s wrong with the model. A simple explanation of why is that it’s a fitted-curve model rather than one that is built up in a more fundamental way, like the Imperial College model.

    You may recall that I wrote several posts on the modeling. I more or less gave up when I saw that Birx was using the IHME model and figured that maybe I had missed something important about epidemiological modeling. Recent articles on her and her role have now convinced me that I didn’t.

  40. 40.

    Van Buren

    August 2, 2020 at 8:13 pm

    @majii: I had a conversation today with a nurse who has had to take a significant pay cut and just does not want to hear it from me or any other teacher about unsafe working conditions….after all, I got my full salary to do”nothing” all spring.

  41. 41.

    Mel

    August 2, 2020 at 8:15 pm

    @Chetan Murthy: Absolutely right. Thank you for this.

  42. 42.

    Mary G

    August 2, 2020 at 8:17 pm

    She’s even lost the Habs:

    Regarding this statement from Dr. Birx to @DanaBashCNN, the Times has repeatedly asked her directly, or White House officials, if we could speak with the doctor, over several months, for various stories. She chooses not to interact with press very often. pic.twitter.com/cuPhl69kCx
    — Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) August 2, 2020

    I liked this reply:

    I wish Dr Birx’ moral courage matched her professional expertise, because the lack of it undermines everything she says. She had a spectacular opportunity and she squandered it.
    — Charlotte (@QEDmostly) August 2, 2020

  43. 43.

    Tehanu

    August 2, 2020 at 8:17 pm

    @joel hanes: 

    trying to hold down an essential job and provide 24-hour childcare when one cannot even take the kids to a public playground is grinding many parents into the ground.

    This is why we HAVE teachers. Having a child does not make you an expert in teaching children, let alone when you’re getting zero support.

  44. 44.

    John Revolta

    August 2, 2020 at 8:19 pm

    @Mary G: I find it very strange and interesting that Birx came out today at practically the same time Pelosi did with this new tack on the subject:

    “We are in a new phase,” said Dr. Deborah Birx. “What we are seeing today is different from March and April. It is extraordinarily widespread” in rural as well as urban areas. “To everybody who lives in a rural area: You are not immune or protected from this virus,” Birx said on CNN’s “State of the Union”

    Did Birx know where Pelosi was gonna go with this today? Was it just a coincidence? Whatever- it reeks of ass-covering.

  45. 45.

    dmsilev

    August 2, 2020 at 8:20 pm

    @Mary G: One unforgivable sin, in the eyes of NYT reporters, is to impugn the integrity of the NYT. In this case, Haberman et al have the right of it, but in general they’re very very touchy about being called out for things that they’ve actually done.

  46. 46.

    Yutsano

    August 2, 2020 at 8:21 pm

    @mrmoshpotato: No no no no no. That’s totally different. Because she was a slut who couldn’t keep her legs closed you see? She made her “choice” when she dared to get pregnant. Now it’s a life until it’s born. Then who gives a shit about another moocher on the system?

    Yes. Yes they actually think like this.

  47. 47.

    James E Powell

    August 2, 2020 at 8:29 pm

    @topclimber:

    I am willing to give her the chance to redeem herself.

    Not me. That ship sailed when Trump said open by Easter and she didn’t shut that down immediately and forcefully. Trump going off like that is what fueled the widespread resistance that erupted a couple weeks after Easter when we didn’t open.

    Every single person who is working for Trump is complicit. Everyone in the DOJ who is helping Barr is complicit. Same with everyone in the Dept of Education who is helping DeVos. You cannot knowingly work for evil and expect forgiveness.

  48. 48.

    patrick II

    August 2, 2020 at 8:32 pm

    I watch a fair amount of YouTube videos and there has been a huge upturn in get-rich-quick advertisements on YouTube in the last week or two.  Just about everything I watch starts with some guy telling me how to make money from home on Amazon how to invest in gold.

    That probably isn’t an official leading economic indicator, but I don’t think it’s good.

  49. 49.

    James E Powell

    August 2, 2020 at 8:34 pm

    @majii:

    I suspect that the parents who are pushing for in-person schooling have had serious problems doing teachers’ jobs.

    They are definitely not doing teachers’ jobs. They don’t have five classes of ~35 students – all other people’s children. They don’t have to talk to parent and they definitely don’t do all the paperwork.

    My six word memoir is “I thought teaching would be easy.”

  50. 50.

    Mary G

    August 2, 2020 at 8:35 pm

    Dead people even hate you @realDonaldTrump LMAO ? pic.twitter.com/f8p4r5XpnN— lynn smith (@lynnluvseddie) August 1, 2020

  51. 51.

    Mary G

    August 2, 2020 at 8:36 pm

    Flying over the Jersey Shore today…. pic.twitter.com/jGB0XKm4ev— JustJanis (@jsavite) August 2, 2020

  52. 52.

    Wapiti

    August 2, 2020 at 8:37 pm

    @Van Buren: Nurses can be idiots, too. My niece’s dad’s second wife is a nurse and an anti-vaccer. Idiot.

    Kids are vectors. Opening schools will cause the spread to jump, worse than it already is.

  53. 53.

    NoraLenderbee

    August 2, 2020 at 8:44 pm

    @mrmoshpotato: Last I checked, abortions were not contagious and you can’t catch one from someone else.

     

    JFC, am I sick of these fucking people.

  54. 54.

    The Pale Scot

    August 2, 2020 at 8:47 pm

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    OT: Cheryl, will you be doing a piece on the push by the US and UK to design and fabricate a new warhead? It sounds like they want a nuke that is between the 2 current designs in explosive yield. Sledgehammers and eggshells and all tha

     

    Or did I miss it

  55. 55.

    Bill Arnold

    August 2, 2020 at 8:48 pm

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    She said a number of things about the models that indicated to me that she didn’t understand them.

    This caught my eye a few days ago:
    “It is at this very moment where we could change the trajectory of the epidemic before it goes into full of what we call logarithmic spread, as we’ve seen across the South,” Birx said. (07/27/20)

  56. 56.

    moops

    August 2, 2020 at 8:49 pm

    @David C: 

    Fauci is a skilled scientific diplomat, but Trump’s superpower is to ruin everything and everyone. Fauci was smart to do a bunch of interviews and build up a charm defense. I don’t ultimately know how Trump will ruin him, but I’m having a hard time thinking of any person that has not been seriously diminished from any cooperation with DJT.

    I guess absolutely worthless Jared has had an opportunity to fail at many bigger and more important things.

  57. 57.

    mrmoshpotato

    August 2, 2020 at 8:50 pm

    From the “calling out Birx” link:

    “I’ve never been called pollyannish, or non-scientific, or non-data driven. I will stake my 40-year career on those fundamental principles of using data to implement better programs and save lives.”

    Who wants to tell her that she fucked her reputation when she went to work for a racist, fascistic, pussy-grabbing, Soviet shitpile mobster conman who’s been slurping the Kremlin’s asshole since 1987?

  58. 58.

    Chetan Murthy

    August 2, 2020 at 8:52 pm

    @mrmoshpotato:

     racist, fascistic, pussy-grabbing, Soviet shitpile mobster conman who’s been slurping the Kremlin’s asshole since 1987?

    Come sit (six feet away, outdoors, masked) by me, yo.

  59. 59.

    moops

    August 2, 2020 at 8:54 pm

    @mrmoshpotato:

     

    Your job and your moral responsibility was to tell Trump “No” when asked to looked into UV light and bleach as treatments while in front of the press and cameras.

  60. 60.

    prostratedragon

    August 2, 2020 at 8:54 pm

    @patrick II:  Running out of fools? Bubble alert.

  61. 61.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    August 2, 2020 at 8:55 pm

    @Wapiti:

    Kids are vectors.

    As the kid, a RN, says about her niece and nephew; “I love my little disease vectors”.

  62. 62.

    prostratedragon

    August 2, 2020 at 8:56 pm

    @Mary G:  I know my father’s ghost has been livid.

  63. 63.

    The Pale Scot

    August 2, 2020 at 8:57 pm

    @patrick II:

    I ‘ll watch the money scheming if it ensures that dickhead shilling the Epoch Times  is one of the first put against the wall when the revolution comes

  64. 64.

    Brachiator

    August 2, 2020 at 9:02 pm

    Only someone with a solid gold reputation and bureaucratic infighting skills like Fauci can survive Trump with his reputation intact. Everyone else leaves Trump’s orbit a lesser person than when they came in, and Birx is learning from an experience that any reasonably intelligent person could have predicted.

    With Trump, your only choices are a competent staffer who tries to minimize the impact of bad decisions made by a gang of idiots, or you get a venal and conniving person who is eager to do whatever Trump wants.

    That’s it. Those are the choices.

    Would anyone really prefer that the competent retain the purity of their reputation and refuse to work for this administration?

  65. 65.

    mrmoshpotato

    August 2, 2020 at 9:02 pm

    @debbie:

    That’s pretty much what I was screaming at the television. I was in the middle of cutting up a cantaloupe and had to step away from the very sharp knife. 

    Mr. Belding: “Screech, you can’t elope.”

    Screech: “Who are you calling a cantaloupe, you melon head?”

  66. 66.

    Another Scott

    August 2, 2020 at 9:07 pm

    I’m of a few minds about her and the situation.

    1) She seems to know something about researching new infectious diseases.
    2) When one is trying to control a pandemic caused by a new-to-humans virus, then all sorts of expertise is needed.
    3) Being a good researcher on infectious diseases says nothing about having appropriate skills in communicating with the public – especially in a dysfunctional administration.
    4) The Peter Principle is real.
    5) Ultimately, this is on Donnie. He trashed Obama’s plan, he appointed the directors for the agencies, he assembled the pandemic team, he put Jared in charge of being gatekeeper for federal support. He determines what everyone can say and when. (I’m not at all surprised that she didn’t talk to FTFNYT – I wouldn’t be surprised if all of her communications have to go through Jared’s mini-me.)

    Bottom line – I am not going to demand her head. I don’t know her motivation or why she’s said the things she’s said (and didn’t say the things she hasn’t said). I don’t think she’s an important villain in this piece. She has no power over the federal response.

    Donnie and Jared and their minions are the problem. Birx is (mostly) a figurehead trotted out for Donnie’s dog and pony show.

    Eyes on the prize.

    My $0.02.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  67. 67.

    Chetan Murthy

    August 2, 2020 at 9:07 pm

    @Brachiator:

    Would anyone really prefer that the competent retain the purity of their reputation and refuse to work for this administration?

    There is always a moment when a competent person says “this far, and no further”.  You’d like to think that a further 100k lives would be such a line.  Also: if she didn’t think those were the stakes, she wasn’t competent.  Even an IDIOT could see that those were the stakes, in April.  Lord Dampnut has one really excellent skill (shared with mob bosses the world over): he knows how to force people to compromise their principles, one-by-one, until they’re indistinguishable from utterly amoral toadies.

    That’s what Birx has become: an utterly amoral toady.  Maybe, *maybe* she was competent (and that shit about “logarithmic” kinda makes me wonder, too); but she’s a toady today.

    Nobody with any sense would have gone around touting the fucking CUBIC model.  Nor the fucking IHME model.  Even an IMBECILE could tell that the IHME model was for *shit*.  It assumed that we would do what they did in Wuhan, when it was clear we weren’t gonna do that.  All the rest is bullshit.

  68. 68.

    different-church-lady

    August 2, 2020 at 9:13 pm

    I’m so fucking sick of living in an entire country that’s in denial.

  69. 69.

    patrick II

    August 2, 2020 at 9:14 pm

    @Bill Arnold:

    I know very little about modeling, so I could not have told you much about her modeling ability back in April. But in August I can.  She is terrible at it.

  70. 70.

    debbie

    August 2, 2020 at 9:16 pm

    @moops: 

    I’m no fan of Birx, but it was obvious he hadn’t spoken to her about that before the news conference. She looked as shocked as everyone else.

  71. 71.

    Chetan Murthy

    August 2, 2020 at 9:19 pm

    @debbie:

    She looked as shocked as everyone else.

    I don’t blame her for that, either.  Mobsters like Donnie do that sort of shit (surprise their on-the-fence subordinates with outrageous acts, forcing the subordinates to decide in a split-second whether to burn their entire careers, or go along and further soil their consciences).  But her wandering around the White House telling people things were getting better, when the CLEARLY WERE NOT — that I blame her for.

  72. 72.

    geg6

    August 2, 2020 at 9:22 pm

    @debbie:

    Which is how he compromised her and now she’s stuck with that poo on her shoe that will never come off.  This is what he does.  He says or does something outrageous, publicly, daring them to contradict him.  If they don’t, he knows they are a toady who will do whatever he wants.

  73. 73.

    Mallard Filmore

    August 2, 2020 at 9:25 pm

    @M. Bouffant:

     

    The concern is that these changes are opening the door for a greater number of programs that focus solely on abstinence.

    The type of stuff that real human youngs have a problem with.

  74. 74.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    August 2, 2020 at 9:25 pm

    “He’s been so attentive to the scientific literature and the details and the data. I think his ability to analyze and integrate data that comes out of his long history in business has really been a real benefit during these discussions about medical issues.”  ~ Dr Birx

    She must be a witch doctor

  75. 75.

    Butter Emails

    August 2, 2020 at 9:25 pm

    @Van Buren:

    I had a conversation today with a nurse who has had to take a significant pay cut and just does not want to hear it from me or any other teacher about unsafe working conditions….after all, I got my full salary to do”nothing” all spring.

    Did you ask her if she was looking forward to  all of the children, their parents, their grandparents and their teachers she would have to treat if they reopened schools?

  76. 76.

    Matt McIrvin

    August 2, 2020 at 9:26 pm

    @Chetan Murthy: There seemed to be a lot of people early on trying to use the curve from Wuhan specifically to argue that we shouldn’t do what they were doing in Wuhan. I never figured out how that was supposed to work unless you just assumed that diseases are acts of God that arrive and leave without human intervention. And a lot of the talk on the right about COVID seems to have that sort of fatalism to it.

  77. 77.

    piratedan

    August 2, 2020 at 9:27 pm

    have to remember, this is the same crew that wants your kids to go to school with bullet-proof/kevlar backpacks rather than enforce or strengthen any gun laws. So shipping little Johnny/Susie off to school in the middle of a pandemic really isn’t much of a stretch for them.. There’s only two things that matter to this bunch, either are you rich enough to boss them around and/or are seen as being in the same tribe with them by virtue of hating the same people that they do.   Everybody else is an other/human livestock.

  78. 78.

    TS (the original)

    August 2, 2020 at 9:35 pm

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    Probably one of the reasons for the flu being down this winter in the Southern Hemisphere is the lack of children visiting grandparents/ extended family. Every winter, guaranteed I get at least one cold from the grandchild. This year I haven’t seen her since February and haven’t had a cold.

  79. 79.

    Cacti

    August 2, 2020 at 9:43 pm

    Everyone else leaves Trump’s orbit a lesser person than when they came in,

    Or in some cases, end up dead.

    (cough) Herman Cain (cough)

  80. 80.

    Patricia Kayden

    August 2, 2020 at 9:45 pm

    There have been 3 straight nights of peaceful protest since trump's goons left Portland.It's NOT a coincidence.— BrooklynDad_Defiant! (@mmpadellan) August 2, 2020

  81. 81.

    pattonbt

    August 2, 2020 at 9:45 pm

    @hitchhiker: this is pretty much it.  And it applies to anyone else who has ever done likewise.  I get it, to rise to the top you have to play politics and compromise.  I don’t expect angels.  But this unnecessary fluffing is grotesque and, in my opinion, automatically disqualifying.

  82. 82.

    TKH

    August 2, 2020 at 9:51 pm

    When I first heard about Admiral Giroir being in charge of testing I assumed (shame on me, I know) that they had drafted one of the military’s logistics wizzards. Turns out he has the right to wear the uniform of an admiral because of his position in the public health service, not because of any demonstrated experience in logistics that a US Navy admiral might have. He was a pediatrician and a medical center administrator. May Dog help us!

    In other words,  Birx and Giroir, as so many in this maladministration, have been promoted well beyond their competence and these times are just about the worst to demonstrate that to everybody in short order. They just do not have the independent stature and credibility to advise a guy who has never taken advice from anybody but Roy Cohn.

  83. 83.

    Bill Arnold

    August 2, 2020 at 9:56 pm

    @TS (the original):

    Probably one of the reasons for the flu being down this winter in the Southern Hemisphere is the lack of children visiting grandparents/ extended family.

    That’s part of it, but basically, the story is that R0 for influenza is less than that of SARS-CoV-2 (in part because of flu vaccines and existing immunity) and all the anti-respiratory-virus non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) applied to reduce R0 of SARS-CoV-2 reduce it for influenza as well, in the later case to well below 1, so it dies out. This hasn’t strictly been proven but it is assumed.

  84. 84.

    Anotherlurker

    August 2, 2020 at 9:58 pm

    @Wapiti: I am being bombarded with Anti-vax and currency/buy gold B.S. from an accomplished psychiatric Nurse Practitioner.

    Go figure.

  85. 85.

    rp

    August 2, 2020 at 9:58 pm

    I don’t Fauci’s reputation will survive. I get that he’s trying to thread the needle and serve the country as best he can given the situation, but at some point he should have stood up and said enough is enough. We live in a society of absolute cowards. It’s pathetic.

  86. 86.

    M. Bouffant

    August 2, 2020 at 10:02 pm

    @RSA: Pretty sure I did that …

  87. 87.

    Patricia Kayden

    August 2, 2020 at 10:07 pm

    If he fights TikTok as successfully as he fought Covid, you'll find it running on your toaster in six weeks with no way to uninstall it.— Elliott Downing (@elliott_downing) August 1, 2020

  88. 88.

    patrick II

    August 2, 2020 at 10:10 pm

    @piratedan:

    The trauma for these kids is going to last forever.  I remember the atom bomb duck and cover drills giving me nightmares about nuclear war back in the day.  But today’s kids, drilling for shooters, scared of everyone who comes near them because of a virus.  I don’t know of a way to make it any easier for them.

  89. 89.

    Patricia Kayden

    August 2, 2020 at 10:13 pm

    Sigh

    San Francisco flattened the curve early. Now, coronavirus cases are surging. https://t.co/IuCjRgcUcp— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) August 3, 2020

  90. 90.

    Cheryl Rofer

    August 2, 2020 at 10:17 pm

    @The Pale Scot: One of my responses to the pandemic seems to be getting bummed out to a lot of topics, including epidemiological models. Another is the topic of new warheads. Now that you mention it, there’s probably something I could say, but it’s so far outside the normal conversation within the field, that it might not be a good idea to go ahead with it.

    Before I got totally bummed out on new warheads, I wrote a Foreign Policy article that has some relevance.

    Basically, the boys (and actually some girl weapon designers) want some shiny new toys. This is so pointlessly dangerous, it beggars imagination. We don’t need more nukes, and we don’t need a new arms race.

  91. 91.

    Cheryl Rofer

    August 2, 2020 at 10:19 pm

    @Bill Arnold: Ugh. Yes, it’s that kind of thing that’s a little off and some worse that pricked up my ears in some of her briefings. A modeler who knows what she’s doing wouldn’t have said it that way.

    ETA: Although sometimes I think she’s trying to simplify what she’s saying and doing a bad job of it. Which is not excusable, either. I’ve done briefings. If you’re going to simplify, work it out first, not on the fly.

  92. 92.

    mrmoshpotato

    August 2, 2020 at 10:22 pm

    @Chetan Murthy: I just bought a 12-pack of New Belgium IPA.  Want one? :)

  93. 93.

    Baud

    August 2, 2020 at 10:25 pm

    OT

    The Biden campaign has been tight-lipped about its contenders. But that hasn’t stopped allies and friends from speculating.

     

    “If I had to bet my life on who would be the candidate, I’d still bet Harris,” said Rendell, who is raising money for Biden and frequently talks to his top campaign officials. “She has the least negatives, she’s the most polished. She’s the person who can take on [Vice President] Pence in a campaign debate.”

  94. 94.

    mrmoshpotato

    August 2, 2020 at 10:26 pm

    @moops:

    Your job and your moral responsibility was to tell Trump “No” when asked to looked into UV light and bleach as treatments while in front of the press and cameras. 

    Moral, professional and I’m-not-a-dumbfuck responsibility to say “No, people should not inject or drink holdhouse disinfectant, and no one should swallow a lightbulb or shove one up their ass.”

  95. 95.

    Baud

    August 2, 2020 at 10:27 pm

    @mrmoshpotato:

    no one should swallow a lightbulb or shove one up their ass for medicinal purposes

    Fixed.

  96. 96.

    Barbara

    August 2, 2020 at 10:28 pm

    @Brachiator: No.  I don’t think she should have quit.  I find her sucking up to be hard to watch, but I really don’t care about that for the reasons you said.  However, if you read the article that she is complaining about, she evidently looked at data on declining rates in the U.S. — but really, just the Northeast — and put the best possible spin on that data.  The best thing you can say is that perhaps she truly misunderstood it, maybe she is at a point that is beyond her expertise.  Understanding a lot about an infectious disease does not necessarily mean she understands how such diseases spread.  Even now, people are arguing about how Covid spreads.  That’s the best thing you can say here, that she was incompetent.

    For whatever reason, she wasn’t cautious, she should have waited for more confirming data, she should have looked at states and regions in isolation to avoid being tricked by a lurking variable (decline in New York).   Lots of other public health experts were saying exactly that.  Instead, evidence that we have suggests that she wanted to find a way to interpret the data to make her boss happy and that’s what she did.  And I think that’s worse than incompetence.

  97. 97.

    mrmoshpotato

    August 2, 2020 at 10:29 pm

    @patrick II:

    I know very little about modeling 

    Strike a pose!

  98. 98.

    FelonyGovt

    August 2, 2020 at 10:30 pm

    @Chetan Murthy: Exactly. Teachers, school administrators and custodians are like meat packing employees, waiters, etc.- expendable because certain Americans expect them to go back to work even if they’re risking their health. Screw that.

  99. 99.

    Chetan Murthy

    August 2, 2020 at 10:31 pm

    @mrmoshpotato: Already there.  The local Safeway (shockingly) recently started stocking Leffe Blonde.  I picked up 4 six-packs today.  From the parking lot, natch.  Ain’t goin’ inside, nosirree!

    Bottom’s up!

  100. 100.

    dmsilev

    August 2, 2020 at 10:36 pm

    @Baud: Wasn’t he one of the old-fossil brigade publicly wailing about how ‘ambitious’ Harris was? Like, just a week or two ago?

    Edit: From the same story,

    In recent days a Politico report surfaced that former senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut, who is on Biden’s vice-presidential vetting panel, told donors that Sen. Kamala D. Harris “had no remorse” for her attacks on Biden while on a debate stage. One donor implied to CNBC that Harris has too much “ambition.” And former Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell, a longtime Biden friend, told CNN that Harris can “rub people the wrong way.”

  101. 101.

    mrmoshpotato

    August 2, 2020 at 10:37 pm

    @mrmoshpotato:

    holdhouse 

    Stupid dog! Autoincorrect!  You make me look bad!

  102. 102.

    mrmoshpotato

    August 2, 2020 at 10:39 pm

    @Baud: Baud! 2020! Get your buttlights here!

  103. 103.

    mrmoshpotato

    August 2, 2020 at 10:43 pm

    @Chetan Murthy: Na zdrowie!

  104. 104.

    leeleeFL

    August 2, 2020 at 10:55 pm

    Dr. Birx lost me when she stayed on the job when her infant GrandDaughter was sick, early on.  Sorry, but I would have been with my family…there were experts galore to prop up that POS

  105. 105.

    Topclimber

    August 2, 2020 at 11:05 pm

    @joel hanes: Well if you are looking at more than a week of school I suppose you have a point.

  106. 106.

    Barbara

    August 2, 2020 at 11:05 pm

    @leeleeFL: Huh?  What a bizarre, and yes, sexist thing to say.  The same bullshit double standard that people the world over apply to professional woman.

    Women who stay on the job when a family member is sick:  Oh, what a horrible mother! She doesn’t care about her family at all!

    Women who take time off to care for a family member:  Oh what an unreliable worker!  She obviously isn’t serious about her job!

  107. 107.

    patrick II

    August 2, 2020 at 11:11 pm

    @Barbara:

    She was wrong, but if she had less optimistic numbers she would no longer be there.  The mistake was hers, but there were plenty of studies and scientific writing about the danger of a pandemic which should have been taken into account by supposed business geniuses who theoritically understand risk analysis.  Those were not the ones the Trump administration wanted to hear.

    There is a reason Fauci got cut out of the loop.

  108. 108.

    leeleeFL

    August 2, 2020 at 11:53 pm

    @Barbara:  WHAT dbl standard? I would have expected Fauci to do the same. Family is first…..or so the Republicans tell us all the fucking time. tRump wasn’t listening to them anyway.

  109. 109.

    ballerat

    August 3, 2020 at 6:22 am

    @hitchhiker: That was when I knew too.

    I’ve thought several times Fauci was going to become a dignity wraith too but so far he seems to be able to wrest enough of himself back before his soul fades beyond the point of no teturn.

  110. 110.

    Ian

    August 3, 2020 at 8:22 am

    @leeleeFL: YMMV but I think that when you are in a position of power responsible for the lives and health of the entire country, by merit of taking that position your job IS more important than your family.  If you (the government official, not you) can’t handle that, don’t take a job that important.

  111. 111.

    SW

    August 3, 2020 at 9:17 am

    She’s an Evangelical.  He was chosen by God.  It’s her duty to serve.

  112. 112.

    scav

    August 3, 2020 at 10:49 am

    @Ian: Especially since, it’s a grand-daughter, presumably with parents, certainly designated caregivers of her own. What’s with the assumption that grandma must immediately quit her job and take over — did she raise an incompetent child? Are only grandmothers capable of sitting in waiting rooms full-time while the actual medical caregivers get on with their jobs if the kid is really sick? Have grandpa and all the uncles and aunts all quit their jobs in order to hover in an appropriate fashion?

  113. 113.

    leeleeFL

    August 3, 2020 at 12:14 pm

    @scav:  Clearly, I am in the minority on this.  I have had to stand with my Child while ER Doctors bullied her about the First GrandDaughter’s asthma diagnosis when she was terrified her Child might not survive, and so I will stand with what I think.  Not going to argue, for me, Family is first.

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