The Biden administration doesn’t need to answer questions
Politico has noticed that few people from the Biden administration have been appearing on the Sunday news programs:
Just one senior administration official was booked on the five major Sunday shows: Treasury Secretary JANET YELLEN on ABC’s “This Week.” She fended off questions on whether $1.9 trillion in new spending would drive inflation and balloon the debt. Sunday show producers tell me the White House only offered medical staff like ANTHONY FAUCI, who appeared on CNN, NBC and FOX, and MARCELLA NUNEZ-SMITH, who went on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” This was despite requests for chief of staff RON KLAIN, VP KAMALA HARRIS and Biden himself. Senior communications staffers like JEN PSAKI, KATE BEDINGFIELD and SYMONE SANDERS were not even offered to explain the bill.
“They’re leaving a vacuum on the Sunday shows,” said one senior producer, who called the whole thing “baffling.”…
Biden, who hasn’t held a news conference since he took office, is expected to interview with local media during his roadshow. And, as the administration official alluded to, he will sit down this week with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on “Good Morning America,” while Harris will be interviewed by CBS’ Gayle King on “This Morning,” sources tell Playbook.
And I’m sure that George will ask Biden some very hard-hitting questions – not.
Why would Biden or anyone in his administration feel they have to answer to the press? They know how the press carried their water during the campaign as well as after. They know that Biden has been treated with kid gloves (or an even softer equivalent) and will continue to be treated that way until it is decided he needs to go. Once (and if) it is felt that he needs to go, the departure will be engineered in the kindest way possible in terms of the administration and the continuance of the Democrats in power. They have little to nothing to fear from the press, any more than the Soviets were afraid of Pravda. The press may mouth a bit of annoyance at not being given the courtesy of a press conference, but not enough annoyance to matter.
A more interesting question to me is whether the general public who voted for Biden knows or cares. My guess is for the most part the answers are “no” and “no.” That is, a great many people don’t pay enough attention to know. For example, they might read some headlines and the first few paragraphs of an article saying that Biden made a great speech the other day, and since the MSM is in agreement about that, and nearly everyone they know is in agreement too, they conclude that it must be true and there’s no need to actually watch the speech or think too hard about it. As for caring, those who do notice Biden’s decline and therefore do know probably don’t care all that much, for the most part, because they consider it worth it all to have gotten rid of Trump, and they also trust that other Democrats are really in charge and will deal with any real business as it arises.
As I watched the polls measuring public opinions about the press drop over the last decade or two, I recall that a lot of people said it meant that the MSM had less and less influence over people. That evaluation made sense in the abstract, but it never fit my perceptions of the actual people I knew and know – and I know a lot of Democrats, both relatively moderate ones and those who lean more leftist. None of these people seemed to lose a particle of faith in the party line, even if some of them lost some faith in the press. It reminds me of something I once read about advertisements, which is that even ads a person finds distasteful or manipulative end up affecting that person and have a tendency to make the person more likely to buy the product anyway.
That’s what I see happening with Democrats and the MSM. And it’s only gotten worse over time, as the press has gotten more preposterous and more overt in its pro-Democrat/leftist bias.
I see this as a tremendous opportunity to get the conservative word out and polish the probable candidates for 2022 and 2024.
The press seems easily “baffled.”
That’s a rewording of the old “we’re stupid” excuse that people, mostly on the Left, use when their evilness peeks through the skinsuit.
Many polls are claiming broad support, not only among Democrats, for the insanely reckless monstrosity known as the “COVID Relief Bill.” The bill, which has little to do with the virus, rewards incompetent blue states as well as the teachers’ unions for their egregious misbehavior/misrule, not to mention the massive amount of pork stuffed into what Psaki was gloating over as the “most progressive bill in American history.” If the polls are indeed correct in the attitude of the citizenry, it merely proves that delivering a small sum of money as “stimulus” will ensure that many of the deluded recipients of such misguided largesse remain happily ignorant of, or unconcerned about, the reality of this truly pernicious legislation.
j e:
I believe “ignorant of” is the proper designation. It’s not as though the MSM is letting them know what’s in it. You have to dig deep to find out.
Garrett Crawford: Do you honestly think TPTB would allow a conservative victory in 2022 or 2024?
We can’t vote our way out of this.
Marisa, I hope I’m not mis-reading you, but “honestly,” “The PTB,” “conservative,” “victory,” and “out” seem black-and-white to me. There may not be a black-and-white way, but I think there’s leeway in the gray.
They don’t care and even when forced by personal circumstance to begin to care… they’ll blame Trump, the deplorables and the GOPe. Never, never, never will they look in the mirror.
“Hand the people a scapegoat to hate. Let them kill a scapegoat occasionally for cathartic release. The mechanism is ages old. Tyrants used it centuries before the word “psychology” was ever invented. It works, too.” Robert A. Heinlein, “Revolt in 2100”
Anyone who thinks that a conservative victory is possible in 2022 and 2024 is in willful denial. Besides Dominion and the plethora of means by which the Presidential election and Georgia Senate elections were stolen, HR-1 ensures a one-party state.
Marisa has the right of it, we’re not going to vote our way out of this amount of treason. When Jefferson spoke of The Tree of Liberty needing to be refreshed from time to time with a blood of Tyrants and Patriots… he had exactly this type of situation in mind.
“Anyone who thinks that a conservative victory is possible in 2022 and 2024 is in willful denial.” Nope but a lot of work has to be done which I am doing. Politics are not static. This is their high water mark.
The press is the willing poodle (to use British slang) of the elite. They prance and scamper about hoping for scraps from the master’s table. I treat them with all the scorn and derision they have earned.
Using my offensive mindset I always wondered why the tables aren’t turned on the poodles by making them research and report on an issue. In other words they ask a question and you respond with a fact and assign them to verify if it is true or not. Then every time you see them ask them how their research is going. If they aren’t doing it then you ask them if they enjoy being ignorant.
Kayleigh would have been a perfect person to deliver this as she is smart as a tack and quick witted.
sigh – so many missed opportunities.
Garrett Crawford:
Coffee is for Closers!
Suggest you learn re-loading or some similarly useful trade.
The only question I have for most of Bribem’s crew is “How do you plead?” and for the ring leaders “Any last words?”
Related to the topic –
https://redstate.com/sister-toldjah/2021/03/16/reporter-details-kamala-harris-road-trip-press-schedule-and-a-more-troubling-pattern-emerges-n344845