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| Drawing by Jack Ohman, April 2020. |
Got into a Twitter dustup with Peter Baker and Maggie Haberman, not exactly a dustup from the technical standpoint, and I still yield to no one in my perverse fondness for Maggie, but this concern for whether Biden is holding press conferences or not is bogus. Baker and Haberman don't even perform for press conferences—no camera around when they're doing their questioning...
At this point in office, Trump had sold you guys about 500 idiotic bald lies and stream-of-consciousness revelations of his personality disorder which you dutifully printed as if they were normal. What he said should have gotten him instantly impeached but instead got you clicks.
— Screechy Ill-Speak (@Yastreblyansky) March 14, 2021
Can you please try reporting on what Biden does (which @PressSec keeps you fully informed about if you're not comfortable reading) instead of whether he practices the rituals of your Church of the Savvy?
— Screechy Ill-Speak (@Yastreblyansky) March 14, 2021
Self-aggrandizing, tbh. WH press corps interested in more on-camera time for themselves. Nothing valuable has happened in these things in decades. Wouldn't mind seeing in-depth interviews with a reporter with policy chops, as used to happen on occasion with Obama.
— Screechy Ill-Speak (@Yastreblyansky) March 14, 2021
I think about that sometimes, in particular one interview in the Atlantic, in maybe 2019, with Jeffrey Goldberg, because I knew I had some serious disagreements with him (over Israel, obviously, and Iran, for instance), but the interplay was so adult.
>At this point in office, Trump had filled only 81 of 554 top positions in government, including 3 (three) out of 119 for the State Department and 1 (one) of 53 for Defense. He didn't explain this at a press conference, but he did on Fox&Friends pic.twitter.com/UF2F70Fhs3
— Screechy Ill-Speak (@Yastreblyansky) March 15, 2021
What was the value to the public of the press conference almost exactly four years ago when Trump was asked about why he had fired Mike Flynn and he quickly turned the subject to complaints about leaking? The public actually became more ignorant than we were before. pic.twitter.com/bE6MVGhYv7
— Screechy Ill-Speak (@Yastreblyansky) March 15, 2021
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He told a bunch of lies that we wouldn't be able to look at critically for more than two years, with the release of the Mueller report. What did we gain from the press conference? How was it reporters' "job" to perform this theater?
— Screechy Ill-Speak (@Yastreblyansky) March 15, 2021
Or maybe "How damaged are you by your failure to raise the minimum wage?" or "Your failure to get confirmation for Neera Tanden?" or "Your failure to make a go of two German shepherds in the White House?"
— Screechy Ill-Speak (@Yastreblyansky) March 15, 2021
How will the public benefit from the answers to those?
In John Kennedy's time the WH press corps was conversant with more than electoral politics and could pin the president down on policy questions. It would be great to see that come back to the press conference, or the Sunday morning shows, but Jesus, it's been 40 years!
— Screechy Ill-Speak (@Yastreblyansky) March 15, 2021
But when you come across suggesting that Biden is morally deficient for not cooperating with your paper's demands, you lose me. What do you have to offer me, a Times subscriber? Why should I back you up in this complaint?
— Screechy Ill-Speak (@Yastreblyansky) March 15, 2021
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