“To ask that question is incredibly irresponsible.”
That was the actual answer to a question from a reporter to the White House Press Secretary this week.
Poor Karine Jean-Pierre.
The Communications Director for the National Security Council didn’t even go that far. Instead, after a lengthy question inquiring about the known facts of corruption and influence peddling by his boss, the former Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby just said, “let’s go.” He closed his binder and marched out.
The comms people across the administration are in a really tough spot right now.
They had been all excited to work for the administration when the press largely parroted whatever they would tell them. Not so much now that no one is asking them about softballs anymore.
Having known a lot of former White House Press Secretaries going back a few administrations, I can tell you things have truly changed.
When Sean Spicer, Sarah Sanders, or Kayleigh McEnany were behind the podium, they were prepared for the abrasive questions and visceral reactions that the hostile press would launch at them. They knew it before they accepted the job. They knew it before they walked into the daily briefing.
The advantage that they had was twofold: they never expected anything less, and they had the advantage of being truthful.
Joe Biden’s press representatives have neither.
The correspondents on beat Washington mostly sleep-walked through the first three years of the Biden administration. They have regularly had their avails cut short or canceled due to a tired Chief Executive. If Biden wanted mint chocolate chip or a nap, that was a good enough reason for a lid to be called.
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What did they care about? They got paid regardless. Their job was to cover what was happening at the White House. If the president's people told them nothing was, then they got an early night off too.
But something different is afoot now.
Some have been uncharacteristically curious about a gross number of inconsistencies, and going along to get along has become unbearably dull.
Whistleblowers with facts and receipts are reaching out to members of Congress about actual crimes. The White House is implicated and hence should at least be able to give a response—they think to themselves.
So they ask the question. But instead of getting an answer, John Kirby just marches himself right out of the room. Karine Jean-Pierre plays gymnastics with words, often not answering direct questions and then proactively offering information no one asked for. As she did in this Q&A regarding the “Coke-in-the-House” issue.
The White House correspondents also have personal first-hand knowledge of how carefully they are screened each day. They know they have to clear security, pass through security detectors, and have their belongings rummaged through every single time they show up for work.
So why does that matter?
Well, they know that every visitor, guest, and staffer does as well. They also know that cocaine has never been “discovered” on the White House grounds before. They also know that a dime bag of coke would be caught by the intricately intimate screening everyone is put through. So in their own experience, they already know that Karine Jean-Pierre is less than truthful when her explanation tries to make them think that a tourist just dropped the bag in the library of the White House residence.
They know it’s baloney.
They know that these mouthpieces are now lying to them, and suddenly, they’re not quite as content, just reprinting the talking points.
The press officials—for their part—certainly don’t want to be answering questions about the first son’s laptop and blow with hookers (and possibly relatives.) They didn’t take this job because they woke up one morning and said, “gee, if only I could get to answer questions about Biden’s daughter’s diary, why she left it behind, and why she took inappropriate showers with her dad.”
Kirby and Jean-Pierre are ideologues, not sycophants.
They’re progressives who want to move America into a direction I detest, but they’re not career masochists. One of them is an avowed lesbian, but she has no desire to justify Hunter Biden’s predilection for his cousins or nieces (or, for that matter, her boss’ strange habit of sniffing and kissing women without their consent.)
Make no mistake, I disagree with their worldview, but I empathize with their current dilemma.
The Biden Crime family’s fatal flaw is their narcissism. Always believing that they exist above and outside not only the laws of the nation but even of societal norms. And it is this narcissism that now, their press people are being forced to impale themselves on.
Between the whistleblowers, FBI documents, and Hunter’s inability to keep track of his gun, laptop, and blow, the days to come look unpleasant for the communications officials in the administration.
Nobody wants their job.
Nobody.
And they can’t resign. If they do, the entire House of Cards starts falling. That ruins their chances to work for people not named Biden in the future.
Which is what they all wish they could do…
Today!
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