Did you know that Joe Biden held a cabinet meeting on Friday? Probably not. Why would you?
But wait. Did you know that Joe invited Jill Biden to speak to the cabinet about the White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research? Probably not that either.
Did you know that Jill sat at the head of the table? No?
Then you missed out! For the past four days conservatives have been in a tizzy about how Jill "ran" the cabinet meeting and is now running the country because Joe is too feeble to do it. They apparently don't know that the president never sits at the head of the table. He sits at the center of the table, flanked by the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense. And that's not all. Here's the latest from the geniuses at National Review:
According to the official White House transcript of the cabinet meeting on Friday: President Joe Biden spoke 305 words and then turned it over to First Lady Jill Biden, who spoke 563 words. Biden then took three questions from the reporters in the room, where he offered answers of 85 words, two words, and 32 words. His total words spoken were 424, three-quarters as much as the First Lady spoke.
Jesus Christ. This was an ordinary cabinet meeting. It was open to the press for the first few minutes, which included Jill's presentation and a couple of shouted questions, and that's the part that was recorded. Then the press was herded out and the real cabinet meeting began. Needless to say, they don't post public transcripts of this part on the White House website.
What the hell is in the water at conservative HQ these days? Their conspiracy theories get stupider and more juvenile every day. Do they even know how the government works anymore?
Conservative HQ knows exactly what kind of stories excite their voters and what kind of stories and visuals the political media are eager to spread far and wide.
They are evil, they do evil.
The average person's ignorance about normal procedure is too precious a resource to be wasted! Especially when it can be exploited to breed disdain and panic when an election is near.
BTW, anyone who remembers the famous picture of Pelosi finger-pointing across the table at trump will recall that they were at the long sides of the table and trump was in the middle of his side. Not a cabinet meeting, but to illustrate that in any important meeting, the president's place is in the middle of the long side. Head of the table is for family dinners.
They're lying scumbags and anything they say or write should be discounted.
They also know this is the kind of story the mainstream “liberal” media might play along with.
Jim Geraghty, who is inexplicably on the Opinions staff of WaPo.
Are there ANY intelligent conservative writers left, or are they all in hiding until Trump goes away?
I wonder if even Trump’s exit will bring back any civility. Too many conservatives have decided that stopping liberals is more important than moral, ethical or even legal considerations. Of course writing a viral piece or winning election doesn’t hurt the cause either. But of course the main motivation is to stop the liberals. Of course.
He is one of the Bezos Post's pundits whose opinions are too feeble for me to waste my time on again. I used to read more of the opinion writers' columns, and am not averse to considering those with which I don't agree, but some nonsense isn't worthy of print.
The WaPo wasn’t this bad until Bezos hired Will Lewis from Murdoch’s sleazy UK media operation. I have always found Margaret Sullivan to be an extremely trustworthy journalist and intrepid media cretic both at the NYT and WaPo. She says Bezos never interfered with the journalists/editorial staff’s decisions.
But he did hire Lewis who is under investigation in the UK for ordering the destruction of emails that the court had ordered preserved as evidence in the phone hacking case against Murdoch’s company.
On the positive side, better that the nut jobs are counting words spoken by the President and First Lady, than, say, plotting the next insurrection.
that won't happen . . . . till November
Seems there is some discombobulation in righty land, as Trump says Barack Hussein Obama is in charge.
Hey Kevin, I know you've been busy, but there's a Presidential election happening right now.
"What the hell is in the water at conservative HQ these days? Their conspiracy theories get stupider and more juvenile every day." When it's all you have, you run hog wild with it.
Ron Howard voice: "They do not."
Do they even know how the government works anymore?
Have they ever?
CLD, you beat me to it!
Actually, now that you mention it, they knew for a while during the administration of the poor sap who had to take over from Tricky Dick. It's hard to remember, isn't it, that was 50 years ago.
They always seemed to know it enough to be able to bypass or defeat it.
As Kevin can be counted on to lob in multiple posts on "hey, its not that bad," sometimes to great discomfort of the comments section, here is the dark side, or dark interpretation.
I think in the past I noted that "Babylon Berlin" has been streaming for a couple of years. It is the highest budget German series ever, and covers Weimar Berlin after WWI and it now into the early 1930s. As the rise of the Nazis becomes more and more an integral part of the show, the writers weave in historical events and characters.
The latest season (one can see in the US), has one character, a gay writer, who is out of work, and, for the "marks" takes a job on the house organ for the Nazis.
It all becomes a bit too real when the conflict between the Brownshirts and SS spills over into a attempted violent takeover of the publication. This finally causes the character to quit.
But before he quits, the banality of Nazi propaganda is really front and center. No one thinks anything about it -- its the great depression after all, and Berliners have other things to worry about. Even pro republic Berliners like the main characters in the show.
If you watch it, and compare today's conservative press to when Goebbels got started ........ well, to me, its frankly too close for comfort already.
I thought this was going to comment that Mr. Drum's regular "hey, it's not that bad" attitude is part of this same problem.
That's why they need a round table.
...in search of a conspiracy.
I guess the reason these dick heads are beating up on a lame duck president is sort of simple. Harris, and the rest of the Democrats, are to blame for poor feeble President Biden, since they all knew he should have been admitted to a dementia memory unit a year ago, and should never have been allowed to pretend to run the country.
DaVinci also puts Jesus at the center of the table.
Just a few months ago, every news. organization and online political commentator/blogger was doing these stories. Only now are they are ridiculous?
Um, ok sure.
Their conspiracy theories get stupider and more juvenile every day.
And yet SOMEHOW they continue to find a receptive audience among Republican supporters. How on Earth could this be? Truly, it is a mystery ...
Jamelle Boule says Trump revealed America and, in the process, changed it. He revealed America to be stupider and more juvenile, and changed it to make it stupider and more juvenile.
Trump noticed. "Do we even have a president?" he asked in chauvinistic indignation.
So we have two possibilities:
1. People at Republican HQ are stupid and don't understand how government works.
2. They understand perfectly well, but they're fundamentally dishonest and unabashedly lie to their supporters, who are stupid and don't understand how government works.
If you haven't been living on another planet for the last few decades you'll know the answer. So, Kevin, why do you need to ask?
Let's see--Trump's all over the news for spouting non-sense. Biden get's a side article about being feeble because he ran things like they've always done it. And Harris--maybe mentioned in an article about polls since she's doing the normal things and discussing policy like a rational person....
Truly bizarre...
This is coming from the guy (Kevin Drum) who was insistent, after Biden's bad debate performance in June, that Biden didn't just need to drop out of the race, but needed to resign the office of the Presidency. I guess he doesn't feel that way anymore.
Tells you all about NR staff meetings, where they show up 15 minutes early to get the BIG chair.
Oh Jim? Anywhere the President sits IS the head of the table.
👍👍👍👍👍
There's an ancient bit of Scottish egotism attributed to Rob Roy that "wherever MacGregor sits is the head of the table". Is the president named MacGregor?
remember when the republicans spent their days counting the number of times obama used the words I, me, and mine? apparently in an effort to show how self-absorbed he was
funny how that fell by the wayside during the trump years, along with all the clinton sex jokes
I'd rather Jill Biden run the country than Nancy Reagan and her astrologer.
I guess it is taking a long time for them to figure out that they aren't running against Biden any more.
As we say down here, bless their hearts.
Kevin, as every Republican knows, the proper way to run a cabinet meeting is to go around the table and have each secretary obsequiously discourse on how great the president is, how honored they are to be in the room with him, how amazing things are going and nothing is wrong and it's a good life and please don't send them to the cornfield.
I'm guessing he uttered more than 454 words at the United Nations, but I guess that doesn't count because teleprompters.