After months of scolding and dismissals from our know-better leftist elites, suddenly it's ok to question whether the Wuhan coronavirus escaped from a Chinese virology lab. It's a whiplash-inducing shift in what's tolerated in polite society and what is considered straying too far from what we're told are accepted "scientific" "facts."
Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) shared a new Wall Street Journal report on Twitter Monday, along with a few examples of how those who dared to question the supposedly infallible experts were treated previously.
"This was always an obvious and realistic scenario," tweeted Crenshaw of the report that three researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology "became sick enough in November 2019 that they sought hospital care," a development "that could add to calls for a fuller probe of whether the Covid-19 virus may have escaped from the lab."
This was always an obvious and realistic scenario. The bigger story here in America might be why so many left wing politicians and media pundits sought to discredit this possibility. https://t.co/WVysVHfaZL
— Dan Crenshaw (@DanCrenshawTX) May 24, 2021
Just a year ago in May 2020, as Crenshaw reminds, National Geographic published an exclusive interview with Dr. Fauci who said there's "No scientific evidence the coronavirus was made in a Chinese lab."
From May 2020: pic.twitter.com/L9NbIsmsmF
— Dan Crenshaw (@DanCrenshawTX) May 24, 2021
A year later, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) grilled Fauci on whether the United States had funded or enabled research that may have led to the development of the Wuhan coronavirus. In Katie's report on the May 11 hearing, she explains why Fauci would try to quash the possibility of a lab leak as the source of the global pandemic:
Republican Senator Rand Paul grilled Dr. Anthony Fauci during a hearing on Capitol Hill Tuesday about the National Institute of Health's funding of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic likely started. More specifically, Paul asked Fauci about funding for "gain-of-function" research at the lab.
Fauci repeatedly denied funding the dangerous and unnecessary research, but the NIH grant process tells a different story.
In fact, Fauci is known as "The Godfather" of gain-of-function research.
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Following the hearing in which he challenged Fauci on the facts surrounding the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Paul joined Fox News to explain why it's reasonable to have suspicions about the origins of COVID 19.
"Dr. Fauci came to Congress yesterday and lied." @RandPaul comments on his questioning of Dr. Fauci over the origins of COVID and the funding of Wuhan lab @BillHemmer pic.twitter.com/PFcYh63fhA
— America's Newsroom (@AmericaNewsroom) May 12, 2021
Crenshaw also shared a February 2020 tweet from former-allegedly-conservative blogger Jennifer Rubin, in which she attacked Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) for using evidence to raise the possibility of a lab leak of COVID-19. "Another sign of the GOP's cultist mentality," Rubin tweeted about talk of COVID's origins. "Cotton either has become an irrational conspiracy monger or he has contempt for voters (i.e. feeds claptrap to the people he considers rubes)," she added.
Well Jen, unfortunately but unsurprisingly, you look like the rube now for falling for the party line and failing to consider the evidence to make up your own mind about the potential that we may in fact be led by idiots.
February 2020: pic.twitter.com/eqxkcK1zCA
— Dan Crenshaw (@DanCrenshawTX) May 24, 2021
And lastly, if you don't trust the likes of Jennifer Rubin and her ilk—and the reasons for such skepticism are myriad—we also had Science(TM) to debunk any alternative theories. In a screenshot also tweeted by Crenshaw, a May 20, 2021 Forbes article proclaims "No, Science Clearly Shows That COVID-19 Wasn't Leaked From A Wuhan Lab."
May 2020: pic.twitter.com/cih3UCTtAv
— Dan Crenshaw (@DanCrenshawTX) May 24, 2021
Newsflash, folks: science can be wrong and is often not as settled as it may seem. That's fine, because science is all about experimentation and hypotheses being tested. But an unproven theory should not be treated as absolute truth, because if such alleged absolutes change, what foundation for science is left?
Last week, as Julio explained, PolitiFact decided that facts had changed regarding the origins of COVID-19:
Fact-checking organization PolitiFact quietly removed an article that was used to go after those who questioned whether COVID-19 had originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which is located in the Chinese city where the virus first started to emerge.
In its original post, which was published on September 16, 2020, PolitiFact's headline was "Tucker Carlson guest airs debunked conspiracy theory that COVID-19 was created in a lab." The piece criticized Carlson for having Dr. Li-Meng Yan theorize COVID-19 came from the lab in Wuhan.
At the time of PolitiFact's initial ruling, Townhall's coverage of Tucker's segment was flagged as "false" by PolitiFact on Facebook. Townhall was able to successfully appeal the flag without making any changes.
Upon deciding the "facts" had changed, PolitiFact explained "When this fact-check was first published in September 2020, PolitiFact’s sources included researchers who asserted the SARS-CoV-2 virus could not have been manipulated. That assertion is now more widely disputed. For that reason, we are removing this fact-check from our database pending a more thorough review. Currently, we consider the claim to be unsupported by evidence and in dispute."
Clearly, the narrative being spun by Fauci and many in our expert class was not as settled as they insisted. Even worse, the attempts to discredit the lab leak theory for COVID may have been a Chinese Communist Party ploy to save face all along.
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