The COVID Thing Is Starting To Look Like Watergate

Except that in Watergate, nobody died. One big currernt similarity, though, is that calls go out for the resignation or removal of key figures -- in this case, Dr Fauci -- that are stubbornly, and even arrogantly, resisted by the administraion, until after months of pressure and successive revelations, they're finally removed. I lived through Watergate; to refresh my memory, I went to the timeline on Wikipedia.

John Ehrlichman, whose photo is above, was one of the more annoying figures in the scandal. He was one of those who resigned or was fired from the White House on April 30, 1973, following months of demands for such action. He eventually served 18 months for perjury and conspiracy. I'm beginning to have a sense of inevitability to the departures of current, similar figures like Fauci, Collins, Daszak, and no doubt others whose names we hardly know.

In fact, another similarity to Watergate is the constant emergence of new names and new details. For Watergate, which was in comparison a fairly simple scandal involving a single burglary and subsequent coverup, the time between the crime in 1972 and Nixon's resignation in 1974 was more than two years. The COVID-Wuhan lab story is much bigger, involving millions of deaths worldwide, enormous worldwide economic damage, and general disruption to much of the world's population.

Among other issues, there's a question of how the world can stop China from continuing its lab research on making viruses more deadly, which is probably more critical to human health and survival than banning nuclear testing in the atmosphere. This isn't going to blow over. Biden clearly doesn't yet understand this, if he ever will.

One data point that just emerged this morning is Dr Kristian Andersen, one of those new names that, as in Watergate, is likely to keep emergine from obscurity. Andersen surfaced last week as an e-mail correspondent of Dr Fauci, advising him on Januaary 31, 2020 that the COVID virus appeared to have been "engineered". However, in public statements made at the same time, Andersen denounced Sen Tom Cotton's similar theory, and later published a paper insisting the virus was natural. Andersen received NIH grants after his change of opinion, raising the question of conflict of interest.

Over the weekemd. after first blocking journalists asking him about his change of stance, Andersen deleted his entire Twitter account. This contained about 5,000 posts, which suggests his use of social media had been at best imprudent prior to this time.

But he seems to be the first of the figures suddenly reaching the public eye to realize the best couse is to stop talking. This is a fast-developing story that I think will be much more significant than Watergate. Other figures need to start reassessing where they stand.