As with so many other bones of contention that divide the Left and Right these days, mask wearing has become a shibboleth. If you choose to wear one, you’re one of the good guys. If you chose not to, you’re beneath contempt.
The media have become true believers in the Church of COVID Prevention. They spend as much time these days preaching the gospel of pandemic safety as they do to reporting the news. When CNN’s Dana Bash interviewed Joe Biden at his home in Wilmington, Del., the network made a big production out of the fact that the interviewer and interviewee were seated not 6 feet apart but 12 — twice the distance specified in the Ten Commandments of Coronavirus safety.
Biden seized the opportunity to call the president a “fool” for not wearing a mask and accuse him of “stoking deaths.”
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A less volatile but equally preachy scene occurred in Wisconsin, where MSNBC anchor Katy Tur and reporter Cal Perry commiserated over all the heathens who refused to wear a mask. “So, are the people there just not worried about it, Cal?” asked Tur solicitously. “Are they not worried about their own personal safety?”
“I haven’t met anybody who is,” Perry answered contemptuously. The segment seemed to be moving along nicely until a bystander destroyed the narrative by pointing out on camera that the MSNBC camera man was one of the sinners.
Watch:
KATY TUR: So, are the people there just not worried about it, Cal? Are they not worried about their own personal safety?
CAL PERRY: I haven’t met anybody who is. I met some folks, actually, from Lake Geneva, who live in the area, they were staying a few miles outside of town where I were, and they said they’re worried it, they’re worried about that second spike, they’re worried about folks coming in from Chicago. But they’ll quickly add, at the same time, this is place that relies on that business. I think people here want a little bit more funding when it comes to these programs so that they could stay closed. But again, I think people felt like the Supreme Court made the decision here in Wisconsin that it was time to open up. But you can see, here, just around, nobody’s wearing them, nobody is —
BYSTANDER: Including the cameraman.
PERRY: There you go, including the cameraman. Katy?
TUR: Striking images, Cal Perry. Cal, thank you very much.
Here’s the same scene from the perspective of the bystander, who is recording the sermon with his cell phone camera:
Cross posted at the Mental Recession
