There’s a guy on Twitter named Thomas Linder who claimed he was a cardiologist. He also claimed he was neutral on Syria though he copied all his posts to Assad propagandists Eva Bartlett & Vanessa Beeley accompanied by an overdose of flattery. On April 14th, he posted this photo from the chlorine gas attack on Douma where medics were treating toddlers with ECG electrodes on their chests & he commented that the electrodes were positioned wrong so they could not receive signals. This, he said, exposed the White Helmets & the photos as fake. That post was retweeted 12,563 times & liked 13,551 times. Just a few days later, he was found out & had to tweet a retraction admitting that the ECG electrodes were in fact correctly placed for the medical procedure. His retraction has been retweeted 28 times & liked 40 times.

Our “neutral cardiologist” also tweeted that a hospital in east Aleppo used dolls in place of babies in incubators for a 2017 news report on aerial bombardment by Russia & Syria. What’s deplorable is that the truth of what happened in Douma is of so little matter to apologists & guppies of Assad’s dictatorship that they feel no compelling need for journalistic or political integrity. Lying is a political method that speaks for itself. But what’s unspeakable is that the suffering of Syrian children is mocked & belittled as fake news. That is a level of political corruption that cannot be corrected or retracted.

(Thomas Linder is probably a Russian bot & not a real cardiologist. But if, on the outside chance he is real & lives in your town, you might consider keeping a safe distance from a guy who doesn’t know where to place ECG electrodes & will lie through his teeth if caught in malpractice.)

(Photo is from video released by White Helmets via AP)