For an administration that boasted it would be the most transparent administration ever, this White House sure lacks transparency.
Just like the words democracy, equality, freedom, and woman, the word transparency seems to mean something entirely different in BidenWorld.
You know the lack of transparency is bad when members of the White House press corps who aren’t named Peter Doocy are growing increasingly frustrated with press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.
Poor over-her-head Karine isn’t used to probing questions from reporters who aren’t named Peter Doocy, so the level of push-back she’s getting over Biden’s mishandling of classified records has left the unqualified press secretary confused and defensive.
Gone are the days when the press corps, pleased as punch to have a “historic” first black lesbian press secretary, spoon-fed Karine softball questions while gushing like pageant moms over her vapid answers.
Now they have hardball questions. And contrary to Karine’s repeated claims of transparency, she is refusing to answer them.
I said last week that I feel a bit bad for this press secretary whom Jesse Kelly refers to as “Karine Diversity-Hire.”
She never should have been promoted in the first place. And while she did fine when the reporters were her cheerleaders, now that they’ve grown contentious, her lack of qualifications sticks out like a sore thumb.
One White House correspondent told CNN’s Reliable Sources newsletter that the mop-haired Muppet “is arguably the least effective White House press secretary of the television era.” Ouch.
Now admittedly, it isn’t entirely Karine’s fault. The White House is telling her not to answer questions on Biden’s mishandling of classified documents and she’s just trying to do what she’s been told.
What is Karine’s fault, however, is that she is continuing to insist that the White House has been fully transparent while actively stonewalling reporters.
Watch this clip from last Thursday’s press briefing. Karine claims that she is not permitted to go into detail while at the same time arguing that there hasn’t been a “limit of transparency.”
Can someone get this woman a dictionary so she can learn what the word “transparency” means?
The first set of classified records was found on November 2, 2022, but the White House didn’t disclose it until last week. How in heaven’s name is that transparency?
Last week, Karine repeatedly assured reporters that there were no other classified documents to be found and the search was complete.
Within no time, the White House admitted that additional classified records were found in Joe’s home office. Then yesterday, it was reported that the DOJ conducted a 12-hour search of Biden’s Wilmington home on Friday and found even more classified records dating from both his time in the Senate and his vice presidency.
There is no transparency in the Biden White House. There never was. But now, with this classified document scandal, even the over-indulgent White House reporters who always make excuses for this administration are admitting that they’re being stonewalled.
At some point, Karine will get tired of being the tip of the spear in the White House’s disinformation campaign. I mean, would you want to be the one who has to stand there and take a barrage of questions you’ve been instructed not to answer?
I think Jen Psaki probably could’ve handled it fine. But not Karine. She is incapable of thinking on her feet. When the going gets tough, Karine can’t handle the heat. Instead, she resorts to burping out rote phrases, “the president takes classified documents seriously” or “we believe in transparency,” oblivious to the fact that the actions of the White House and this president prove the opposite.
Transparency is an impossibility in an administration that depends entirely on carefully-staged optics because optics only work when the public is never permitted to see what’s going on behind the façade.
Unfortunately for the Biden White House, reality all too frequently interferes, stripping back the carefully-constructed veneer and exposing the feckless incompetence and moral rot that lies beneath.