Originally published at: Jen Psaki informs the press corp that President Biden has no intention of leading an insurrection | Boing Boing
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Here’s the thing about putting a shoe on the other foot:
People usually don’t do that, because any given shoe doesn’t generally FIT the other foot.
If Biden is a left loafer then Trump is a right jackboot. You’d have to be a complete idiot to get the two confused.
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An early form of that “shoe” exchange.
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Well, that’s a load off my mind.
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I’ve seen a number of variations of this question, and I think what’s being asked can be summed up as: “If you do this thing in response to an extraordinary circumstance, and thereby set a precedent, what happens when the Republicans are in power and can do the same thing while disingenuously claiming it’s an extraordinary circumstance?” The problem with the question is, the Republicans have been doing exactly that for years, without the Democrats setting the precedent first.
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Exactly. Maybe I’m in a media bubble, but I never, ever hear the question being posed the other way, “if you’re willing to prevent a SC justice nominee from being heard and interviewed, and let a seat be vacant for nearly a year, aren’t you worried about the precedent that will set?” Or, “if you’re willing to shut down the gov’t over something you literally did not care about 3 years ago when the POTUS had an R beside their name, aren’t you worried about the precedent that will set?”
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One could fill Lake Baikal with questions like that posed to Mitch McConnell alone.
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Indeed. He’s asking the question of, “What happens with the next Republican president? Will they release information in order for the current DOJ administration to prosecute the outgoing president?”
They are going to do that anyways. Benghazi was a warmup.
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I suspect the press knows damn well the Republicans are acting disingenuously and Democrats mostly act in good faith, so the questions they ask - and don’t ask - are premised on that. But they think “being neutral” requires not admitting to knowing that (even though having that knowledge affect their reporting heavily biases it), and to “both side” issues otherwise.
Yeah, accepting the premise of the question would result in simply not responding to the outrages and illegalities of the Republicans because you’d fear setting a precedent, when the Republicans never needed one to commit those outrages in the first place.
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The Psaki praise on here is bordering on creepy.
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What’s creepy is the daily fear mongering and stupidity that the right wing propaganda corp tries to insert into her briefings.
That’s creepy.
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Also, Biden was VP for eight years, while this: Presidential Records Act (PRA) of 1978 | National Archives
was still being followed. During the Trump years, the president used to rip up documents before the archivists could get their hands on them. So, Biden’s actions from 2008-2016 are already on the record, and he’s used to that, as are other functional presidents. Unless there’s a Nixon or a Trump in office, it’s understood it’s what’s expected.
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There are multiple problems here.
First off, like she said, Jan. 6th was unprecedented. NOT fully investigating it is at least as damaging to our democracy as any precedent there might be set by handing over “privileged” documents.
Secondly, if the GOP continues to elect authoritarians like Trump, what difference does it make if a precedent has been set by not allowing executive privilege on previous administrations documents? It’s not like Trump gave a damn about “how things are supposed to be done”, and some future wannabe dictator like Allen West or Josh Hawley would gladly break with tradition if it meant destroying the Democrats.
Bingo.
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Taking a smidge of joy in a more progressive woman being competent and funny is just wrong.
Taking the party out of politics since whenever.
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It seems to me that the GOP hasn’t had any kind of overreaching ideology since Reagan. It’s a mix of the wealthy exercising the naked power of money and collection of reactionary social policies. And IMHO that is a big part of the reason that they are pre-conditioned to see EVERYTHING as exclusively partisan. Trump was just the latest step down on the “nothing matters but power and bending others to your will,” stairs.
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Yep, and Psaki knows that they know that and responds with all of the contempt that bullshit duality deserves.
Plus, she’s just right. Even with Dem Presidents, much of what comes from the press office is just straight up bullshit spin. Psaki definitely knows how to massage a message, but she’s also honest and direct in a way that is startlingly refreshing. It remarkable in the most literal sense.
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I dunno, I find it rather refreshing that the press secretary is someone who is smart and absolutely not afraid to directly cut down the stupid or loaded questions, asinine theories, and republican horse s&^t being thrown by the press with razor sharp wit and definitively worded statements that are near impossible to take out of context, and does it with a smile the entire time.
Trump was also more for the entire “nothing matters but ME. DIG ME. I CAN DO NO WRONG, DIG ME”, but that’s what I’ve come to expect from a narcissistic, sociopathic con-artist who’s spent their entire live running one big con against everyone.
@cannibalpeas , I cannot upvote you enough for that reply.
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