White House Press Briefings Hit All-Time Low (Behind Those Dead Eyes)

STAFF NEWS & ANALYSIS

By Ben Bartee - December 08, 2021

White House Press Secretaries are the poor man’s Goebbels — morality-free stooges who trade the semblance of integrity for a six-figure salary and attention.

Lights, camera, action… and the Kabuki theatre commences. The neutered press corps asks pre-approved, pre-screened questions one by one. Then the Press Secretary rattles off pre-packaged answers, which are repackaged as “news” and shipped out through the corporate media.

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What follows details why dealing with any government official — particularly at the federal level — is a fool’s errand. You’d get more honesty out of a gypsy street hustler/fortune teller working the streets of Prague.

This recent one was an all-time low:

Psaki Blames Supply Chain Crisis on Americans’ Spending Habits

07:00: Reporter’s question on supply chain crisis: “The Port of Long Beach yesterday saw this new record broken: 100 vessels at anchor are waiting to enter. Normally, pre-COVID, they’re seeing 17 ships, give or take, at anchor. Is the President satisfied today on where things stand?”
Jen Psaki’s answer: “The President is satisfied that progress continues to be made [see PR talking points section for further analysis on this oft-repeated catchphrase]. And one of the reasons that there has been so much traffic in a lot of these ports is because there are more goods that are being ordered by people across the country.”
Here, Psaki pushes the narrative that ships are trapped off the coast in unprecedented backlogs by the hundreds because Americans are purchasing goods – not because the federal government locked down ports, shuttered international borders, and shut out unvaxxed workers for two years.

Her nonsense goes unchallenged, and the press corps moves on.

Psaki Mocks Americans’ Inability to Procure Goods

17:15: Psaki again mocks the supply chain crisis.

Reporter question: “It was clear in March of 2020, when COVID hit, that the supply chains across the world had been disrupted. Even as the sort of work to fight back against COVID proceeded, people — it was crystal clear that things were not improving on supply chain. People couldn’t get dishwashers and furniture and treadmills delivered on time, not to mention all sorts of other things. So why is it…”

Psaki: “The tragedy of the treadmill that’s delayed.” [saccharin smile]

Reporter: “Right, the tread — the problem. But serious — the serious point is: Why didn’t the President act sooner in a more aggressive way?”

Psaki: “Well, that’s not actually true. The President formed of task force at the very beginning of the administration.”

Her evidence of proactivity on the administration’s part to fix the supply chains is that Biden formed a “task force” at the start of his presidency – one that apparently failed spectacularly. In what way is that a success?

She goes on to explain that COVID vaccines are the way to fix the crisis: “We’ve been working to be the largest supplier of COVID vaccines to countries around the world… to help address those global supply chain issues.”

Again, Psaki wants to redirect blame for her party’s support of the lockdown of the global economy to instead blame the crisis on the vaccine rollout, the virus itself, and consumer demand.

Psaki Deploys the ‘Protecting Children’ Talking Point to Distract From Border Policy Failures

23:00: Peter Doocy (the only reporter who sometimes asked mildly challenging questions; but he’s still super milquetoast): “Why is the administration flying thousands of migrants from the border to Florida and New York in the middle of the night?” (in reference to the ongoing border crisis that the administration has done nothing to resolve)

Psaki: “Well, I’m not sure that’s in the middle of the night”

Doocy: “2:13 a.m., 4:29 a.m. — very early in the morning then…”

Psaki: “In recent weeks, unaccompanied children passed through the Westchester airport… en route to their final destination to be unified with their parents or a vetted sponsor.”

First, Psaki attempts to quibble with the “middle of the night” characterization for flights occurring at 2 a.m.

Then, she pivots to deflect criticism of the administration’s border policy by hiding behind children’s welfare — another common tactic of the left. The effect of which is that if you criticize the policy of a collapsed, dysfunctional border in the middle of a global economic crisis, that’s only because you hate children of color or whatever.

Psaki Brazenly Lies About IRS Bank Account Monitoring

24:00: Doocy: “There’s this new proposal by Democrats in Congress and the Treasury Secretary to start monitoring every bank account that has $10,000 of cash flow per year…”

Psaki: “Well, that’s not exactly an accurate description…”

Doocy: “Why is it that you need to start looking at accounts that just have $10,000 in it?”

Psaki: “That is — that is not exactly what it does. The $10,000 is the — anything under that would not be applicable.”

But Peter didn’t say “under $10,000”; he clearly said “$10,000” as a minimum threshold — a characterization of the Biden-sponsored $10,000 IRS spying regime that is fully accurate. Note that Psaki, despite saying “that’s not exactly what it does,” never explains why what Doocy claimed is wrong.

The rest of the press briefing consists of Psaki trying to justify the numerous broken promises in the infrastructure bill, the embarrassing negotiations with the Haiti kidnappers of missionaries, and boys playing on girls’ sports teams because “transgender rights are human rights, whether for adults, for kids.” etc.

Again with the hiding behind kids and “human rights” to justify unpopular, nonsensical policy positions.

Word-Salad PR Talking Points

The phrases, clichés, buzzwords, and platitudes galore:

“make progress/making progress” x11 (PR code for “failing to meet objectives/live up to commitments”)
“path forward” x10 (PR code for “we’re not doing anything productive at the moment”)
“I’m not going to set a new deadline” x3 (PR code for “I don’t want to make any commitments that I might later be responsible for sticking to”)
“I don’t have anything to preview for you” x6 (PR code for “I don’t want to answer your question about what the administration’s plans”)