The central hypocrisy of President Joe Biden's indictment of the "MAGA Republicans" -- as well as the Pelosi-picked panel on Jan. 6 -- is all the evidence of liberals and Democrats being "election deniers." Democracy is crumbling when Republicans question election results, but everything Democrats say and do should be categorized as exercises in idealism.
In the Sept. 6 Biden press briefing, Fox White House reporter Peter Doocy started to point out what press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre tweeted in 2016. She said, "Oh, I knew this was coming." Doocy said, "You tweeted Trump stole an election. You tweeted Brian Kemp stole an election. If denying election results is extreme now, why wasn't it then?"
On Dec. 17, 2016, almost six weeks after Trump's upset victory over Hillary Clinton, Jean-Pierre tweeted, "Stolen emails, stolen drone, stolen election... welcome to the world of #unpresidented Trump."
On April 2, 2020 -- about 17 months after Stacey Abrams lost her election in Georgia -- Jean-Pierre tweeted over an MSNBC video link: "Reminder: Brian Kemp stole the gubernatorial election from Georgians and Stacey Abrams." Why so late? Liberals at that time were suggesting Kemp (like Trump) was one of those GOP COVID-19 mass murderers.
Jean-Pierre tried to call the comparison "ridiculous," that "(she) was talking specifically at that time of what was happening with voting rights and the -- what was in danger of voting rights." That changes absolutely nothing. The hypocrisy remains. The only leg these liberals have to stand on is they didn't riot at the Capitol. They spent most of Trump's presidency treating him as a Russian-imposed fraud, but that's somehow not being a dangerous "election denier."
Conservatives quickly pointed out the obvious: if the press secretary had long anticipated this question, why was the answer so remarkably insufficient?
Then ABC's "The View" -- the platform where common sense goes to die -- attempted to defend this hypocrisy. Whoopi Goldberg argued those tweets were just fine, since "she was part of MoveOn.org. She was not an elected official. She was doing her part as an American citizen saying how she felt about an election." It was her "freedom of speech."
Millions of "election deniers" are private citizens exercising free speech. That didn't prevent Biden from attacking them as a rhetorical disaster-movie earthquake shaking the foundations of democracy. But new faux-conservative "View" panelist Alyssa Farah Griffin suggested Doocy's comparison was "apples and basketballs."
It gets sillier. Goldberg added not only was Jean-Pierre a "private citizen," she "wasn't even on television." This is blatantly false. She proudly touted herself as an MSNBC political analyst in her MoveOn days, and also showed up on CNN with Don Lemon. In 2017, she railed against Trump on Joy Reid's show for hating black women, that "he now sits behind the Resolute desk in the Oval Office essentially defecating on women."
In November of 2019, when NBC's "Today" gushed over Jean-Pierre's memoir "Moving Forward," co-host Craig Melvin told viewers, "You can also catch her on MSNBC just about every day." That's not a "private citizen."
It's a rollicking part of our democracy that Democrats seek to keep their minority voters activated and lining up to vote by scaring them relentlessly about Republican conspiracies of "Jim Crow" voter suppression and even "(they want to) put y'all back in chains," to quote then-Vice President Biden. The "independent fact checkers" fail to pounce and the Big Tech platforms won't squash them for "disinformation" and dangerous election-denier messaging.
Karine Jean-Pierre was only acting like every other cynical liberal playing this game. Doocy could have thrown this question at her when she took over for Jen Psaki in May. Her answer would have been just as lame then.
Tim Graham is director of media analysis at the Media Research Center and executive editor of the blog NewsBusters.org. To find out more about Tim Graham and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.