By Ray Cardello for May 10, 2022 Season 10 / Post 34
Jen Psaki is either a great actress or believes she is as good as she imagines. Regardless of which, she is painful to watch. She ends the last six weeks of unethical behavior by finally leaving the White House to cash in at MSNBC. She has been negotiating her contract and role at the leading misinformation network while still in the highly sensitive position of White House Press Secretary. She stood behind the podium where people like Tony Snow, Arie Fleischer, Dana Perino, and Kayleigh McEnany took the job seriously and served the country and the White House with pride. She claims to have overseen the most transparent White House in history. Just like her view of her performance, the Biden White House has been a lie. It has been a manipulated charade since January 20, 2021.
As part of her farewell tour, she sat down with Howie Kurtz of FOXNews. It was ironic since she has spent the last sixteen months treating the FOX White House correspondents in a childish condescending manner. She turned up her tone with Peter Doucy and Jacqui Heinrich during the previous six weeks when she may have been double-dipping from MSNBC and the American people. She made the job personal and unmistakable. We will never know how much was her new boss’s direction and how much was her initiative.
As muddy as the Psaki/MSNBC scenario is, the sequel may be worse. Biden continues his streak of bad decisions and hires. MSNBC leaves the West Wing as CNN comes in through the bedroom door. Karine Jean-Pierre made history this week as the first black woman and first openly gay person to be named White House press secretary, replacing her boss Jen Psaki. Jean-Pierre is married and shares a daughter with CNN correspondent Suzanne Malveaux. There is no way the White House can sell this as an ethical situation when the White House Press Secretary shares a pillow with a CNN reporter.
We saw enough of Jean-Pierre whenever she filled in at the podium to know she was not competent to handle the job. She will take the term Circle-Back to plain old I don’t know. With the goal of diversity in the Biden White House over experience and credentials, it makes sense they hired someone who checks multiple boxes. Karine is a black gay woman married to a white gay woman. That is a trifecta of boxes for one person.
Aside from the apparent breach of security that the new secretary and her partner present, she is a step down from Psaki, which is not a good place to begin. This leaves us with a President sheltered by his handlers from speaking with the Press and a Press Secretary who is not competent to speak for the President. The American people deserve better than what we are getting from this administration. Joe Biden has put this country in a terrible state. To not have faith in the words of the President and his surrogates leaves us in the dark when we all need to be searching for the light.