Tag Archives: White House press secretary

Psaki has done well, however …

Having said already that Jen Psaki should resign her job as White House press secretary after allegedly accepting a job offer to work as a commentator for MSNBC, I feel a need to give her a thumbs-up for the job she has done speaking for the Biden administration.

She has performed admirably. The juxtaposition of the job she has done compared to jobs done by the four people who preceded her in the previous administration prove my point.

You had Sean Spicer, whose first press briefing was devoted to blasting the media for its reporting of the crowd that attended Donald Trump’s inaugural in January 2017; it went downhill from there. Then you had Sarah Sanders, who would later admit to telling lies to the press. Then came Stephanie Grisham, who left her job in first lady Melania Trump’s press office only to never conduct a press briefing while serving as flack for the POTUS. Finally, there was Kayleigh McEnany, who blathered, blustered and lied her way before the media all the way to the end of Trump’s term in office.

Jen Psaki became press secretary for President Biden, and to my way of thinking, she has conducted herself with professionalism and resolve, particularly in the face of strong questioning from the media representatives before whom she stood in the White House press briefing room.

Speaking for a presidential administration is among the most challenging jobs one can imagine. They occasionally have to “clarify” statements that presidents make. At times they have to defend the indefensible; some of them do it admirably while others, well … don’t. They all — whether they work for Democrats or Republicans — face hostile questions. They have to maintain their composure.

Jen Psaki has managed to accomplish virtually all those goals during her time in the press room hot house.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

POTUS-press relationship restored

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Those of us who have toiled, or are still toiling, in the business of providing information through media outlets to the public took serious objection to a president of the United States labeling the media as “the enemy of the people.” 

I am part of the former group. I am now retired from daily journalism. Still, I am heartened to see that the White House press briefing room might be allowed to return to its original mission: to allow the media to question the White House press spokespeople on issues of the day.

Press secretary Jen Psaki, on the first day of the Biden administration, delivered her first press briefing to the media assembled in front of her. It was wonderful to see a return to the way these events are designed to go. Reporters ask questions of her about presidential policy; she answers the questions directly.

Psaki reminded reporters that there likely will be differences between President Biden and the media that cover him.

Biden’s presidential predecessor didn’t like the way covered him. He bristled at tough questions. He would label stern questioners as peddlers of “fake news,” which was the height of irony, given his own fomenting of lies and mistruths.

Earlier presidents got hectored as well from the press that sought to get to the truth behind issues of the day. They didn’t like the treatment any more than Biden’s immediate predecessor. They realized that a free and aggressive press is essential to holding government officials accountable for their actions, their statements and their policies that affect all of us.

I am looking forward to seeing how the POTUS/media relationship develops in the Joe Biden Era. It won’t always be warm and fuzzy. I want it to be constructive even in the face of criticism that comes with the territory.

UAL hires communications pro; the airline needs him

Josh Earnest earned his PR stripes serving as press secretary during the second term of Barack Obama’s presidency.

He’s now got a new gig that looks to be every bit as challenging — if not more so — as trying to convey a presidential message.

Earnest is now vice president in charge of communications for United Airlines, the carrier that has been bombarded with negative publicity over the past year.

Do you remember the gentleman who was dragged off a UAL flight because he declined to give up his seat? It was caught on video as the cops wrestled the guy off the plane. Not a good moment.

Oh, and then just recently we had the issue of the puppy that died after being stored in the overhead luggage bin, also aboard a UAL flight. Bad news, too.

Earnest will be asked to convey the airline’s message as it continues to struggle to regain its footing in the wake of these high-profile incidents.

Good luck, Josh Earnest. Just don’t turn into a corporate propagandist.

Now it’s Trump’s turn to turn the page

The nation is still reeling — more or less — from comedian Michelle Wolf’s performance at the White House Correspondents Dinner.

She belittled in a vulgar fashion the looks of the White House press secretary, using language I won’t use on this blog.

Wolf has gotten her share of criticism, which I believe is deserved.

There is another side to this matter. It involves the president of the United States, Donald J. Trump.

Wolf supporters say Trump is equally guilty of flinging insults, of denigrating people’s appearance or their physical disability. He uses highly intemperate language when he tweets statements at all hours of the day and night.

I’ll ask this of the president: Why don’t you, sir, start speaking with a lot more dignity and decorum when you criticize those who oppose you?

Trump gave Wolf ammunition she thought she could use against him when she took the podium the correspondents dinner. Just maybe the president could “disarm” his critics just a bit by adopting a more civilized — and, um, presidential — manner of speaking to the issues of the day.

OK. Having said that, I am acutely aware that none of this is likely to occur. Donald J. Trump is not wired to behave in a presidential manner.

I just had to put it on the record.

A joke, Mr. President? Why not apologize?

Sarah Huckabee Sanders has inherited the least desirable job in America: White House press secretary.

She is assigned to defend statements that pour out of the mouth of the president of the United States, who recently told law enforcement officials that they need not concern themselves with treating criminal suspects with respect.

It’s OK to rough up those who are arrested, Donald John Trump Sr. said.

Sanders’ answer to that? The president was making a joke, she said.

Wow! I missed that one. I didn’t see it as a joke. I was offended. So were top cops across the land. So were politicians in both parties.

This, therefore, begs the question: Why not apologize for a misconstrued joke, Mr. President?

I get that Trump isn’t inclined to apologize for anything. He hasn’t said he’s sorry for a single thing he has said since becoming a politician in June 2015. The insults? The mocking of disabled individuals? The defamation of political opponents? The furthering of “fake news” involving President Barack Obama’s place of birth? Nothing, man.

Pols apologize all the time for jokes that fall flat. Heck, I’d even settle for one of those phony “If I offended anyone … “ non-apologies we hear on occasion. Yes, even one of those would be welcome if it were to come from the lips of the Non-Apologist in Chief.

Was he joking, or not? The president’s silence on this matter of police conduct suggests — to me — that he meant what he said.

No, ma’am, it’s not yet ‘time to move on’

Sarah Huckabee Sanders gets paid to do the bidding of the president of the United States.

However, the deputy White House press secretary should know better than to insult Americans’ intelligence with a goofy assertion about it being “time to move on” from questions swirling about Donald Trump’s campaign and its possible link to Russian government operatives.

We’ve got a lot more ground to cover, young lady, especially in light of the president’s abrupt firing today of FBI Director James Comey.

With that, I would urge you to tell your boss — the president — something he needs to hear, but likely won’t want to hear. It is that these questions won’t blow away with the wind until he comes clean about what he knew, when he knew and who was doing it.

The “it” happens to involve questions about whether the Trump presidential campaign colluded with Russian hackers seeking to swing the 2016 presidential election in Trump’s favor. He keeps dismissing the questions out of hand. He suggests that “anyone” could have done the hacking; yet he never fingers the Russians directly.

All of these dismissals, all this obfuscation, all the maneuvering only lend credence to the suspicion in many circles that the president is trying mightily to keep information from the public — from those he now governs as head of state.

Time to move on, Sarah Sanders? Hardly.

Sanders said: “Frankly, it’s kind of getting absurd. There’s nothing there. We’ve heard that time and time again. We’ve heard that in the testimonies earlier this week. We’ve heard it for the last 11 months. There is no ‘there’ there.

“It’s time to move on and frankly it’s time to focus on the things the American people care about.”

I happen to “care about ” knowing whether the president worked with a foreign government to influence our election. I suspect I am not the only American with such concerns.

Does the president love this country? Yes!

The White House has its collective dander up over those goofy remarks by Rudy Guiliani, who this past week said President Obama doesn’t love America.

I’ve commented on this. I won’t take up too much of your time with yet another commentary.

I’ll leave the response to White House press flack Josh Earnest.

“The most high-profile example that I can think of was actually the last line of this year’s State of the Union in which the president said, ‘God bless this country we love,'” Earnest said Friday.

There have been countless other declarations of love of country.

Isn’t Guiliani paying attention?

Oh, I almost forgot. An election year is coming up and he’s got to find something — anything — with which to demonize the president.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/axelrod-i-dont-know-why-there-is-confusion-on-obamas-beliefs/ar-BBhQRSp