KellyAnne melts down in a quest for relevance....THIS IS COVID-19, NOT COVID-1!

[yellowcanine]

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/04/this-is-covid-19-not-covid-1-kellyanne-conway-uncorks-scientifically-illiterate-rant-against-who-on-fox-friends/

Trump White House counselor Kellyanne Conway uncorked a bizarre rant against the World Health Organization on Wednesday, hours after President Donald Trump said he was freezing funding to the group.

In defending the president’s controversial move, Conway blamed the group for not being more on the ball when it came to handling the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We have every right to know because of what’s happened here in this global pandemic, but there’s another reason, some of the scientists and doctors say that there could be other strains later on, this could come back in the fall in a limited way,” she said. “This is COVID-19, not COVID-1, folks! And so you would think the people in charge of the World Health Organization facts and figures should be on top of that right now.”

As Media Matters researcher Bobby Lewis points out, the “19” at the end of COVID-19 denotes it as a strain of the virus that was discovered in 2019, rather than marking it as the 19th overall strain of the virus.

[RockRaven]

1. Admitting it is named after the discovery year is a problem in Trumpland because it admits they

SAT ON THEIR ASSES FOR MONTHS AND AMERICANS ARE DYING BECAUSE OF IT.

[spicysista]

4. Exactly, Rock Raven! 😤 nt.

[SheltieLover]

7. This!👆

[DEbluedude]

2. Alternative facts. n/t

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

3. The comments on Twitter about this are hilarious.

Was Malcolm X the successor to Malcolm IX? Don't watch the movie K-9 until you've seen K-1 through K-8. And what about the first 2000 movies before A Space Odyssey?

[Aristus]

6. HA!

[yellowcanine]

10. Was it the Bowling Green Massacre-1 or 19?

[Dem2]

5. In a normal world, she would be so embarrassed she would apologize profusely

...or resign.

[jmowreader]

19. Anyone with the capacity for embarrassment wouldn't be working for Trump

[Watchfoxheadexplodes]

8. Where is the George tweet

"my wife is freaking nuts"

[DonaldsRump]

9. What a loser!

COVID-1 vs COVID-19....this would make nice footage of how clueless this mal-Administration is.

[Ilsa]

11. This is the level of understanding when education is too specific.

"Why is Biology or Microbiology a required course for my Poli-Sci major?"

At least with a fundamentals class, you understand how much you don't know, as opposed to thinking you're a public expert.

[Ms. Toad]

12. This same mistake was made by at least one DU member

A couple of weeks ago.

Yes she should know better, but it's not necessarily a political based ignorance.

[ProfessorGAC]

13. True, But...

...when ignorance is a job requirement, as in this case, it's dangerously stupid.

[Ms. Toad]

17. This is as much a response to numerous posts in this thread

and several others - that attribute this particular bit of ignorance to being republican - as if no Democrat would ever beliefe anything so stupid.

[ProfessorGAC]

21. I Get You!

I'm agreeing, but someone here making a logical leap that makes no sense is not dangerous.
Conway acting like this is just a normal thing that happened 18 times before, is!

[Ms. Toad]

30. Absolutely!

I was just tired of multiple threads, and multiple posts within each thread, linking this bad fact to being a republican.

I would not be at all surprised if she intentionally misstated the fact since it makes a nice meme.

[greenjar_01]

14. Kellyanne Conway is a spokesperson for and Counselor to the President of the United States

Appearing on a major news network.

Fuck's sake.

Is there anything they do you won't defend?

[Ms. Toad]

18. You might want to re-read.

I am not now, nor have I ever, defended Conway.

Yes she should know better, but it's not necessarily a political based ignorance.

Let me break it down for you: "Yes, she should know better" = bad, Kellyanne, bad = not a defense

"but it is not necessarily a political based ignorance" = not only republicans are saying this = a statement of fact that there are also democrats who do, or have, believed this. There are members of DU who believed (and publicly posted) the very same thing. At least one even argued with others about it when others tried to correct them. = not a defense

We tend to be a pretty elitist bunch around here - and to loudly trash any utterance that includes poor grammar, misspellings, or inaccurate facts as identifying speaker as a republican. Implying it is peculiar to republicans is insulting to democrats who are under the same misimpression.

[Caliman73]

20. For Kellyanne it is. Context is important.

Conway is an advisor to Trump and a spokesperson. Her ignorance has significant consequences where the ignorance of a DU member has very few.

People confer authority to others based on their position in society. While us here at DU know that Conway is full of shit, many people see her speaking for the administration and think that she has information and knowledge.

Seriously, if she actually thinks that COVID-19 is the 19th strain of coronavirus, then she has NO business answering ANY questions about it and should have deferred to an expert. More likely, she knows that what she was saying is bullshit and just put the statement out there to insinuate something untoward about the WHO.

[Ms. Toad]

26. I agree with all of that, but it is not the point I was making.

In this thread, as in the several other threads on DU, people are attributing this to a particularly republican form of ignorance.

I wasn't commenting on the relative significance of Conway v. DU members - I was commenting on our tendency to associate failure to fact-check to being republican. Unfortunately those characteristics cross political boundaries - as evidenced by the fact that people on DU have said the same thing. We need to stop being so elitist and recognize that not every spelling, grammar, or factual mistake is an indicator of political affiliation.

[Caliman73]

27. I agree with your point basically

We may tend to over attribute things to political ideology. However, there is much more likelihood, even among rank and file Republicans to not accept being corrected, and to continue to hold on to discredited or debunked ideas.

The issue with Kellyanne for me is that she isn't just making innocent mistakes. She is sent out to do whatever she has to do to advance the Trump agenda and that often means deliberately lying.

[Ms. Toad]

28. Absolutely.

And I wouldn't put it past her to know this was false, and to say it deliberately because she knows that it is a good meme to initiate/perpetuate.

[W_HAMILTON]

22. Why are you bending over backwards to defend this dumbass?

Nowhere in the original post does it claim that this is "political based ignorance."

Now, having corrected you on that, SURELY you can see the difference in some random person on DU being incorrect about this versus the president's spokesperson being incorrect about this, right?

[greenjar_01]

23. Two modes

1) Republicans are not so bad
2) Democrats are just as bad

This one manages to check both boxes.

[Ms. Toad]

24. Nothing I said defended her.

Tamp down your knee-jerk response and read what I actually said. If that doesnt' help, see the response here

And, seriously, you haven't seen the numerous posts in this thread (and in the several other threads on this subject) linking this particular misstatement of fact to being republican?

[W_HAMILTON]

25. Yes you did.

You straw manned the original poster by bringing up a claim they never made ( "political based ignorance" ) to play the whataboutism card so that you could lessen the idiocy of Conway by comparing it to some other random poster on here.

I might have been inclined to overlook it, but I recognize your name as someone that was defending the discredit rape allegation against Biden by playing the whataboutism card there as well.

[Ms. Toad]

29. If you want to have an honest conversation with me - fine.

But I'm just not interested in having a "when did you stop beating your mother" conversation.

[Midnight Writer]

31. It's not an ignorance. It is a lie that will be believed by the kind of people who vote for Trump.

[Ms. Toad]

32. As to Kellyanne - that would not surprise me at all.

But that wasn't the point I was making.

We often (including in this thread and in multiple other current threads) attribute poor spelling, poor grammar, and the failure to fact check to being a republican.

Is the person on DU who argued when someone who corrected them as to this exact misstatement of fact "the kind of people who would vote for Trump"? That's exactly what we're saying - and what I am concerned about. We are insulting DU members (and other democrats and progressives) when we make blanket connections between characteristics like these and political affiliation.

[Takket]

33. That DU member probably isn't a senior advisor

To the president with a hand in major policy decisions that effect all Americans.

[Ms. Toad]

34. Absolutely agree, but not the point I was making.

See here

[Progressive Jones]

15. Everything about Team Trump is worn, frayed, sleazy, and cheezy. nt

[global1]

16. As Far As I'm Concerned She & The WH Staff Are All Accomplices In Trump's Incompetence & Criminality

and are responsible for the deaths of 1000's of Americans that could have been saved if he would have acted sooner on this crisis. They enable him. They don't stand up to him. They let him (actually) get away with murder. They continually circle the wagons around him. They encourage him to be the worse he can be. They are just as guilty as him.

I don't know how these people can live with that on their brains. How do they sleep?

Are there no sane and rational people in the WH? Doesn't anyone challenge him?

They should be resigning instead of letting him bully them.

It sometimes leads me to believe that it isn't Trump coming up with all these ideas (i.e., de-funding the WHO; restarting the economy too soon; etc). It's almost like there is someone else making these decisions and using Trump to carry them out - because he doesn't know any better.

I posted yesterday that Drs. Fauci and Brix have let down the American People because their job is to protect us and they are not standing up to Trump the way one should if they were really intent on protecting the American People.

They can't let Trump re-start this economy this soon. Flattening the curve is not killing the virus. It's just allowing the hospitals to handle the throngs of people that are presenting themselves to the hospitals in a more orderly way. It's spreading out the cases - so that the hospitals can manage them and maybe save more people. This virus will be with us until they have a vaccine or some method of treating it. It will hit every area of this country. The rural areas are not spared. It will hit them too.

If Trump tries to jump start the economy too soon - we'll be seeing a second peak - one that even might be worse than the first because people will let their guard down. Trump is gambling with our lives now and not one of his bankrupted casinos. Now I understand how he went bankrupt.

And the people around him just always enable him. They encourage him. They do not serve him well and they certainly don't serve us - the American People well either.

[abqtommy]

35. Oh KellyAnne, how can I miss you if you don't go away?