The Wall Street Journal is claiming that Dr. Peter Marks, [t]he Food and Drug Administration’s top vaccine official, has been pushed out or forced out, depending on whether you’re reading the headline of the lede. The news writer, though, gave the fact of Marks’ departure in the second paragraph:
He submitted his resignation after a Health and Human Services official earlier in the day gave him the choice to resign or be fired, people familiar with the matter said.
Even stipulating the description to be accurate—it is carefully sourced to anonymity—Marks’ decision plainly was a wholly voluntary choice.
He could have held out for being fired, but he chose otherwise. He voluntarily resigned. Pressure might have been applied, but he easily could have resisted the pressure.
This distortion isn’t unique to the WSJ; it’s a broad and hoarily held misrepresentation by the press at large.
Apart from that, there were valid reasons for wanting Marks to go, and he made crystalline one of them in his resignation letter.
It has become clear that truth and transparency are not desired by the Secretary, but rather he wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies[.]
Those aren’t the words of someone who’d be gainfully employed any further; firing him would have been a legitimate response. He was given a choice, though, and he voluntarily chose.
Nobody forced him to make that choice. Nobody pushed him in one direction or another.
