Free speech is a cherished good. But at a time when truth itself is under assault, it brings with it a special obligation to do one’s best to speak truthfully and to observe ethical norms.
These obligations are all the stronger when one is given a special platform from which to address the community. The Gazette provides such a platform, so it too needs to be concerned that its writers be accurate in their factual claims. Unfortunately, in several recent cases this did not happen.
In one of his columns Jay Fleitman, a pulmonologist, wrote that Joe Biden “clearly has a degenerative neurological disorder in which dementia is a part.” Fleitman said this, although he has never examined Biden, and medical ethics frowns on doctors, even specialists, issuing such diagnoses on people who are not their patients.
More recently, David Zimicki, who had previously warned of the impending “sovietization of America,” did the same, claiming that he has 30 years of experience “evaluating and working very closely with thousands of neurological patients.” On this basis he finds in Biden’s behavior “powerful indicators of cognitive decline and you don’t have to be in a doctor’s office to glean this.”
Well, actually you do. Cognitive decline is determined by well-established tests performed in doctors’ offices, not by watching YouTube videos, some of which we know are faked by Republican and Russian trolls to convey unfavorable impressions of Democratic candidates.
Both Fleitman and Zimicki apparently support Donald Trump, and it would take enormous chutzpah to find mental failures in Biden while not mentioning Trump’s unprecedentedly bizarre behavior as president. On this topic, however, Fleitman pleads lack of evidence: “(Trump) is characterized as being narcissistic, blustery, erratic, and unintelligent or uninterested. It is impossible to be outside the White House and Trump’s personal orbit to know what if any of this is true.”
The hypocrisy here is staggering.
Zimicki, after conceding that you can “say what you will about President Trump,” follows this up with a series of falsehoods, all easily checkable. First, that Trump was “quite right to ban travel from China on Jan. 31.” But Trump did no such thing. He only restricted such travel, still allowing U.S. citizens and 10 other categories of persons to enter the U.S. And he took this step only after waiting eight days after being notified by the World Health Organization on Jan. 22 of the imminent danger.
As many as 100,000 travelers from China may have entered the country in that period.
The second falsehood: Trump’s action on Jan. 31 saved many people from infection. Health experts such as Jennifer Nuzzo of Johns Hopkins testified before Congress in early February that Trump’s travel restriction was ineffective and should be revoked.
And finally, Zimicki contends that Biden called the restriction “xenophobic,” and that “not only did Biden show abysmally poor judgment at a crucial moment, but his reasoning was just weird reflexive gibberish.” This is outrageous. Biden did not oppose the restriction. And what he called xenophobic was Trump’s widely decried use of the term “China virus.”
If we have such little respect for facts and ethical norms, how can we hope to have constructive political debate in this country? Sadly, local readers have been poorly served in these recent instances by Fleitman, Zimicki and the Gazette itself.
John M. Connolly is a Sophia Smith Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Smith College.