There has been a lot of well-deserved gawking at her disastrous and incoherent interview with the New Yorker‘s Isaac Chotiner.
There has been a lot of well-deserved gawking at former Biden White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre’s disastrous and completely incoherent interview with the New Yorker‘s Isaac Chotiner.
Reading the interview is like watching a DUI car crash in slow motion — except that the driver somehow thinks she’s as talented and capable behind the wheel as Mario Andretti.
Is Jean-Pierre arguing that Joe Biden was pushed out of the race by Democratic leaders because Democrats are mean and disloyal and were keen to ignore black women and the “L.G.B.T.Q. community”? Or did the great and wonderful and prepared Kamala Harris not get Democrats’ full support because Harris was black and female? Or is it that — in Jean-Pierre’s words — “I never really believed Harris could win”? Is it not more plausible that Democratic leaders were concerned about Biden, and later Harris, precisely because they thought there was a good chance that either of them would lose to Donald Trump in the November 2024 elections?
It is — and I mean this in the most generous way possible — very difficult to say what Jean-Pierre is arguing. I think that’s probably because Jean-Pierre doesn’t know what she is arguing either. She can’t express clearly what she can’t think through clearly.
And that’s fine — not everyone is cut out to be a professional communicator. This wouldn’t be a big deal at all, except for the amazing and incredible fact that Karine Jean-Pierre somehow failed upward to be the chief spokeswoman for the president of the United States. And she is so put out by the criticism that she and her former administration have received that she has left the Democratic Party and become an independent.
As the Aussies say: crikey!
The whole thing makes it even more amusing to read Eli Stokols’s and Alex Gangitano’s report in Politico describing the Democrats’ “horrified” reaction as the “former press secretary’s struggles to explain herself.”
Here’s a taste:
Several Democrats have bristled at Jean-Pierre’s emphasis on so-called identity politics, seeing it both as a shield against questions about her book’s coherence and as out of step with the moves by some in the party to recalibrate after Trump won with a campaign geared toward criticizing that rhetoric.
“The interviews use a vernacular, which we now acknowledge doesn’t work — very identity focused. It’s bringing us back in time and we need to be going forward and focused on communications that we know will work in this era,” said the third former Biden White House official.
Other former senior Biden administration officials, including several people of color, expressed similar concerns. “Every time she falls back on identity politics instead of actually answering questions, she reinforces the worst stereotype about Democrats,” said the person who worked with Jean-Pierre inside the Biden West Wing.
“Several Democrats have bristled at Jean-Pierre’s emphasis on so-called identity politics”!
This kind of rhetorical ploy is “a shield against questions about her book’s coherence”!
“Every time she falls back on identity politics instead of actually answering questions, she reinforces the worst stereotype about Democrats”!
Crikey!