The media's bogus attack on Sen. Tom Cotton about the origins of the Coronavirus

Power Line:

THE MEDIA SLANDERED TOM COTTON FOR ASKING A LEGITIMATE QUESTION. WHY?

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Sen. Cotton summarized this evidence and more in a Wall Street Journal op-ed published last week. He still isn’t saying for certain that the virus originated in a Chinese lab. He admits that the evidence is “circumstantial,” but says it “all points to the Wuhan labs.”

Certainly, some evidence does. The labs in question were ordered to destroy their samples, and the lab that first published the virus’ genome reportedly was shut down. These actions by the Chinese government may preclude ever finding direct evidence that the virus originated in a Wuhan lab. However, they add to the circumstantial evidence that it did.

Regardless of how one evaluates the evidence, it cannot plausibly be argued that Sen. Cotton is pushing a fringe conspiracy theory. There’s too much circumstantial evidence to support the notion that the virus came from a Chinese lab.

Indeed, Cotton isn’t even presenting a conspiracy theory. To my knowledge, he has never suggested that the virus’ jump from the lab (if that’s what happened) was other than an accident.

I’ll suggest some “conspiracy theories,” though. The mindless attack on Sen. Cotton by the Times, Cillizza, Zakaria, Williams, et al. stems not from an evaluation of the evidence but rather from (1) a desire to attack a politician they don’t like, or (2) a desire to defend China that, as I suggested above, wouldn’t apply to certain other countries, or (3) a combination of these two desires.

What we are finding from the mainstream media in recent months is that they cannot be trusted to honestly present the news if it is inconsistent with their favored narrative.  I think that is what happened in their reaction to the statements of Sen. Cotton.