We were all had. The question is why.
The Biden administration drove a false narrative on the supposedly missing OceanGate submersible for four days. It was a misleading story line because it omitted a KEY point.
The Wall Street Journal is now reporting that the U.S. Navy had evidence of an implosion/explosion right around the time the submersible ceased communications. On Sunday.
That’s right. The government/Biden administration knew on SUNDAY that the submersible likely imploded, killing all five crew members, but did not tell the media or public for days (we can pray that they told the families; that’s unclear.)
That leaves the question: Why?
We will simply note:
The juggernaut of news coverage nearly drowned out news about Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden’s measly plea bargain, the damning IRS whistleblower testimony into the Hunter laptop investigation, and John Durham’s scathing testimony detailing how the Russian hoax was a Clinton plot adopted by the FBI and fed dishonestly to a FISA court determined to spy on an American citizen.
A top secret U.S. Navy detection system designed to spot enemy submarines first heard the Titan submersible implosion days ago https://t.co/gwuYrYZxJV
— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) June 23, 2023
Since they didn’t tell the media or public about the Navy intel in a series of carefully orchestrated U.S. Coast Guard media briefings, the story blew up into massive coverage driven by the race-against-the-clock rescue efforts to supposedly find five souls who might be bobbing around the ocean floor in a tiny powerless capsule, still alive, praying for rescue, with ever-dwindling oxygen supply. That justified the massive cost and interest.
Actually, the government already knew there was a credible data point indicating they might all be dead. Rather than saying this, the Coast Guard held detailed briefings implying the crew members might still be alive, giving running counts of how much oxygen they had left (40 hours! No 10! Etc.), and revealing that underwater noises were heard (banging sounds!).
Fox News reported that the government didn’t share this information with the media/public because it wasn’t “definitive.” Okay. Still conduct the search and “rescue” in case. That’s not the problem. But do share what you know with the media/public. That IS the problem. They did not.
Sunday’s news conference could have shared, “Hey, the Navy detected what might have been an implosion around the time that communication was lost, but we are going to search anyway to verify what happened, just in case.”
This would have been honest. It also would have shifted the narrative dramatically.
It would have been a smaller story without the strong possibility of living rescue.
It’s a cover up, and it’s a disgraceful one that plunged the world through a kabuki theater of faux hope and emotion with coverage worthy of the Challenger Disaster.
Again, the question is why. It’s worth noting, again, how many big stories, all unfavorable to the Biden administration, were drowned out.
Minimally, this level of dishonesty through omission decreases trust in our institutions. It makes us feel like we’ve all been had. After the Russian hoax outlined by Durham, and all of the misinformation on COVID (wear masks, masks don’t really work, etc.), this continues to erode trust.
We don’t blame the news media, absent information, not yet presented, that they knew about the Navy’s find much earlier. We blame the government cover up.
As presented by the government, this was a story that any news outlet would tell; five adventurers trying to explore the world’s most famous shipwreck, gone missing. The images and possibilities were something out of horror stories. Shades of the Thai boys in a cave and Jessica McClure down a well, the world was briefly united in the hopes of a miracle. We were just as fascinated by the false narrative as the next person. Yet it was a work of fiction.
The government already knew…
They already knew…
