WaPo’s Masked Hero: Ruth Marcus

CLAY: A Washington Post editor. Her name is Ruth Marcus. She is the Washington Post deputy editorial page editor and a columnist. And she tweeted out yesterday morning, “‘In Madison, Wis. By now I should know better but: I get in elevator. It stops on lower floor. Man steps in, unmasked. Sign in elevator says masks required. Me, getting out: ‘you know, it would be really nice if you wore a mask.’ Man: ‘I don’t care what you think.'” And then she says, “America 2021.”

Now, she has tweeted this, Buck, as if she is the hero, the heroic protagonist of this interaction. I actually sided once more — a lot more. I’ve read this, and I kind of laugh and the man said, “I don’t care what you think,” and then she says, “America 2021.” The guy is really funny response, I think, which wasn’t even that mean.

BUCK: I would say this to people that have this reaction, ’cause I come across this fairly regularly still in New York City where you get the people that look at you like you smell really bad or something when you go to get on the elevator with them and you don’t have a mask on, even though in some places — I don’t even know — there’s not a New York City mask mandate.

But the CDC says masking indoors makes sense. You can’t even keep track of this craziness anymore. But I just say this: If we’re so serious about this, why doesn’t Ruth Marcus just say that she agrees to not go to restaurants anymore? Why? You don’t have to go to restaurants. Now, in New York City they did a study, and it was that less than 1% of covid cases actually were restaurant it may in the first place.

But you’ll notice that they still have all the staff masked up here. They still have people that work in the restaurants masked up so they ignore the data. If it’s really about, “If it stops just one case we have to do it,” then why don’t these whether people? I’m talking about New York. In D.C., Ruth Marcus should say, “I don’t need to go out to eat. I’m going to bar myself from all restaurants until covid is over.”

Isn’t that a small price to pay, Clay? What you’ll notice is they’re very insistent on rules for other people under the guise of we’re saving lives, but they themselves have certain areas where they’re willing to make tradeoffs and make concessions.

CLAY: Not only that, it is — as we have laid out — basically the case that there is zero protection provided by masks, so you are lecturing someone for not following a nonsensical rule.