OPINION:
It takes a truly special kind of person to be the White House press secretary. Unlike the spokesman for, say, Microsoft, who lies about how great the latest software is, the president’s spokesman lies about the most important issues in the world — not to consumers but to the American people.
Some great liars have served as the White House flack. Ronald Ziegler’s mastery of mendacity as President Nixon’s spokesman was awe-inspiring. George Stephanopoulos took it to a whole new level by declaring that Gennifer Flowers’ story of her affair with Bill Clinton was “tabloid trash” (Bubba would later have sex with an intern in the Oval Office).
Jay Carney, who once dabbled in journalism, took the position to new heights by lying nonstop for President Obama in his first term (the Yalie now works for Airbnb, which might explain those $2,400 charges for cleaning services).
All of them paled in comparison with Jen Psaki, who served President Biden for a year and 113 days, telling America that Ol’ Joe was just fine, not at all mentally impaired, really just a great guy who was fully up to the task of being the leader of the free world.
Ms. Psaki said last week that she had no idea her boss’ cognitive decline was quite so severe until she saw his train wreck performance during the first presidential debate.
“I never saw the person on that debate stage. I was in the Oval Office every day. … I’m not a doctor. Aging happens quickly,” Ms. Psaki said on a podcast.
Yet she declared there was never a “cover-up.” Rather, everyone in the White House knew Uncle Joe was a bit slow — and getting slower every day — so they covered up for him.
“Cover-up is a very loaded term,” she said. “People use that term as related to Watergate or the covering up of not sharing public information about a war. … I think it’s a bit of a dangerous term.”
Then came that June 27 debate, when Mr. Biden looked like a deer in the headlights, stumbling and bumbling through 90 minutes that ended his political career. She didn’t say it then (she was being paid to lie for the president), but in the podcast, she claimed she told colleagues halfway through the debate, “This is a f—-ing disaster.”
“Maybe the media missed a lot,” Ms. Psaki conceded. “In retrospect, there were probably major stories missed. It’s always easy to play Monday morning quarterback.”
That, my friends, is a truly great liar. She was there to inform the American people about their president, yet she claimed she was just a spectator on the sidelines, powerless to tell us all that the quarterback is severely limited, doesn’t have game and can’t lead his team to victory.
The liberal media are busy rewriting history, too. At the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner last month, Axios’ Alex Thompson, co-author of an upcoming book on Mr. Biden’s fall, took direct aim at the media’s failures.
“President Biden’s decline and its cover-up by the people around him is a reminder that every White House, regardless of party, is capable of deception,” Mr. Thompson said. “But being truth tellers also means telling the truth about ourselves. We, myself included, missed a lot of this story, and some people trust us less because of that. We bear some responsibility for faith in the media being at such lows. I say this because acknowledging errors builds trust and being defensive about them further erodes it. We should have done better.”
Now, a new book reveals that Mr. Biden’s team chose not to have the president take a cognitive test in February 2024. Why? Well, that would simply raise more questions about his age, the book says.
Meanwhile, more information keeps dribbling out about how far White House officials went to hide Mr. Biden’s clear descent. His former chief of staff, Ron Klain, admits he professionally gaslit America with his cheery Biden fitness messaging (“sharp as a tack,” he said — after the disastrous debate).
Then there’s Michael LaRosa, a former White House aide and longtime press secretary for Jill Biden. “There are some things that are true, I mean, like the gaslighting. There was a lot of denial of the polling. And I will use the term gaslighting because that’s what they were doing, the campaign, former colleagues,” Mr. LaRosa said.
“The president’s team was scared to death of impromptu, unscripted, unrehearsed, unpracticed, unchoreographed anything,” he added.
Few former White House officials went as far as Ms. Psaki with her unbridled mendacity. Now, she works for MSNBC. Isn’t that just perfect?
• Joseph Curl covered the White House and politics for a decade for The Washington Times. He can be reached at josephcurl@gmail.com and on Twitter @josephcurl.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.