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Rather than cover actual scandals involving Democrat governors and their botched responses to COVID, CBS’ “60 Minutes” tried to invent a scandal involving Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ distribution of vaccines. To push the false narrative and protect its favored governors, “60 Minutes” refused to interview people who disputed its false narrative, selectively edited video to hide facts, and omitted data that debunked its thesis and accurately describe Florida’s success.

It’s not that “60 Minutes” couldn’t have reported on real scandals involving governors and COVID, if it wanted to. New York’s Democrat Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a media darling despite his many failures, sent COVID patients into long-term care facilities full of vulnerable people, and then covered it up. California’s Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom has imposed draconian lockdown measures that have crushed his state’s economy, its schools, and the entire population of the state. He’s currently facing a recall attempt from citizens livid at his handling.

To protect these men, the Democrat-allied news show instead targeted Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, widely recognized for his leadership during the pandemic. Unlike most political leaders, DeSantis has balanced the health concerns from the pandemic with the public and societal health concerns of harsh lockdowns that destroy economies, children’s lives, the ability of people to provide for their families, and the right of people to worship and live their lives.

The result is a state that hasn’t just tackled COVID, but has done so without destroying families or the economy that sustains them. The success has happened even though Florida has the second-oldest population in the country and COVID is known for hitting seniors far harder than other age groups.

“60 Minutes,” known best for pushing obviously forged documents weeks prior to the 2004 election in order to harm Republican President George W. Bush, took the approach of claiming that Florida’s vaccine distribution has been uniquely “chaotic” and the result of some ill-defined “pay to play” conspiracy theory developed by its reporter Sharyn Alfonsi.

Alfonsi focused her “reporting” for the last month in beautiful Palm Beach, where she half-cooked a conspiracy theory about his vaccination distribution. One part of it is that DeSantis was only prioritizing vaccination for seniors, not because they are the group far and away the most vulnerable to getting seriously sick, hospitalized, or dying from COVID, but because Florida seniors are more likely to be wealthy and white than the rest of the population, or because they’re more likely to vote for him.

Another part of the conspiracy theory is that despite all evidence to the contrary, DeSantis had personally rammed through a decision to use Publix grocery stores for vaccine distribution. Publix was used to help out with vaccine distribution, “60 Minutes” insinuated, not because they are far and away the most ubiquitous grocery chain in Florida, but because they had given DeSantis a routine political contribution last year, totaling less than 3 percent of what he got in political contributions for February alone. Alfonsi claimed she “obtained” these reports of political contributions, a dramatic word choice for publicly available contribution records.

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