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… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

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You are here: Home / Politics / Biden Administration in Action / Wednesday Evening Open Thread: An Example for Us All

Wednesday Evening Open Thread: An Example for Us All

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Keep in mind: Drezner, author of the #Toddler-in-Chief thread/book, is a professor of international relations, not a journalist:

… The surfeit of Trump dirt raises an interesting question: Where are the stories dripping with insider details about how President Biden runs his White House?…

Let’s start with the lack of stories. The brute fact on the ground is that Biden is considerably more mature and less erratic than Trump. Biden’s staff is also clearly more cohesive and simpatico with Biden’s policy preferences than was the case with the Toddler in Chief. All else equal, the supply of bad-presidential-behavior stories should be smaller than it was in 2017.

The easy conservative narrative is that the mainstream media is in bed with the Biden administration. The trouble with that line of attack is that even GOP strategists are acknowledging that it’s really, really tough to attack Biden’s presidential style.

Stories about presidential dysfunction are likelier to emerge when an administration commits an own-goal or when an ideological faction loses a policy debate. A bad news cycle incentivizes staffers to explain to reporters how something was not their fault. Losing out on a policy decision gives some policymakers an incentive to go to the press. In the Biden White House, there has been little of the former and only one prominent example of the latter.

[The ‘prominent example’ is Larry Summers. Who should be ignored, for every possible reason.]

So there has been a virtuous circle within the Biden team. The lack of stumbles have led to fewer process stories, which in turn has reinforced a reputation of the Biden White House as a tight ship, disincentivizing further leaking…

Reader Interactions

48Comments

  1. 1.

    debbie

    Horrible things are not being planned, so there are no guilty consciences needing to be eased.

  3. 3.

    MattF

    @debbie: Horrible things advocated by horrible people. I used to be startled by how many horrible people there were.

  4. 4.

    NotMax

    No sooner hit post and a new open thread appears. Repeating from tail end of thread downstairs, WaPo link.

    “I’m a survivor of the Tulsa Race Massacre,” Viola Fletcher, 107, told members of a House Judiciary subcommittee Wednesday. “Two weeks ago, I celebrated my 107th birthday. Today, I’m visiting Washington, D.C., for the first time in my life. I’m here seeking justice and asking my country to acknowledge what happened in Tulsa in 1921.”
    [snip]
    “The night of the massacre, I was awakened by my family. My parents and five siblings were there. I was told we had to leave and that was it. I will never forget the violence of the White mob when we left our home,” she said, “I still see Black men being shot, Black bodies lying in the street. I still smell smoke and see fire. I still see Black businesses being burned. I still hear airplanes flying overhead. I hear the screams.

    “I have lived through the massacre every day. Our country may forget this history, but I cannot. I will not. And other survivors do not. And our descendants do not.” Source

  6. 6.

    Baud

    There’s been a dearth of Biden process stories, especially compared to Trump. What does that mean?

    Biden doesn’t talk to the media using a pseudonym or as a “White House official.”

  8. 8.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Baud: nor do his daughter, whose name I can’t think of (Ashley?) or her husband, whose name I have never known.

  14. 14.

    Geminid

    @BruceFromOhio: Larry Summers does not seem to have any positive contributions to make to the debate about how we are going to solve our problems. He should just shut his pie hole.

  16. 16.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @Raven: what passed?

    Also fuck Larry Summers. He’s one Clinton parasite who can just go the fuck away.

  19. 19.

    Another Scott

    @Baud:

    The bipartisan bill to create a Jan. 6th commission passes the House of Representatives by a vote of 252-175, the 77 vote margin includes 35 Republican YEA votes.

    — southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) May 19, 2021

    The heavy lift, as always is the Senate.

    Chuck needs to dare them to vote No.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  20. 20.

    zhena gogolia

    @Baud:

    Oh, I guess I wasn’t following closely enough. It has to get 60 in the Senate?

    Nevertheless, this does put pressure on.

  23. 23.

    Another Scott

    @Baud: Same here.

    It shows again that McCarthy is a weak leader who can’t count.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  26. 26.

    Arclite

    It’s funny how someone who is actually interested in governing and spends 50 years practicing governing is actually good at governing.

  27. 27.

    Martin

    @Another Scott: 35 House GOP is more than expected. There might be some life here after all.

    Have we heard what Manchin thinks of the GOP filibustering this to cover their own criminal exposure?

  28. 28.

    Mike in NC

    Being “more mature and less erratic” than Donald Trump is about the lowest bar there is.

  29. 29.

    prostratedragon

    Joy Reid has a segment coming up on Ms. Fletcher and the Tulsa testimony.

  30. 30.

    bbleh

    So … a political story about political stories about political stories.

    I guess it takes a full Professor to get that meta. Or that far into his own … um … navel.

  31. 31.

    Old Dan and Little Ann

    The common meme from assholes I see is, “What I wouldn’t give for gas under $2 and mean tweets.”    Fuckem.

  33. 33.

    Dan B

    @rikyrah: Denying tenure to this amazing woman is punishment for telling racists that their myth of happy slaves rescued from darkest savage Africa is a well documented myth.

  37. 37.

    NorthLeft12

    Personally, I am blaming Joe Biden for hiring competent, and intelligent people who know how to work with other people.
    It is also not helpful that Joe and all his close subordinates are decent human beings with integrity to boot!

    Oh, for the return of the chaos and madness of TFG……said no sane person ever.

  38. 38.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @debbie: I’ll admit I don’t pay much attention to the price fluctuations, but it seems to me the dip in gas prices a year ago was very short-lived

    also, gas prices going up as Memorial Day weekend approaches?  been so as long as I can remember

  41. 41.

    Redshift

    @debbie:

    Horrible things are not being planned, so there are no guilty consciences needing to be eased. 

    And no need for “yes, the administration I’m part of is doing horrible things, but trust me, I’m stopping worse things” ass-covering.

    (A particular peeve of mine, since there’s no evidence things got worse after “the adults” left, they just got less competent and more likely to get caught. Thanks, guys.)

  42. 42.

    Redshift

    @Old Dan and Little Ann:

    The common meme from assholes I see is, “What I wouldn’t give for gas under $2 and mean tweets.”    Fuckem.

    Apparently they’re telling each other that the cancellation of the Keystone XL is somehow responsible for the gas pipeline, so it’s Biden’s fault.

    Idjits.

  43. 43.

    Ken

    @debbie: I’m vaguely recalling some Republican — Bachmann? — about a dozen years ago, saying how great it was that gas prices were so low under Bush. As plenty of people pointed out, yes, you crash the economy and prices of lots of things go down, because people can’t afford them.

    Though even Bush II never managed to get negative spot prices. That took TFG’s very special touch.

  44. 44.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    In short, compared to Trump, Biden is an outcompetent. Of course, I’ve passed some turds that are far more competent than Trump; sure, they stink, but they’re *supposed* to, and they do it *properly*. If someone told me Trump’s farts smelled like roses, my first thought would be “ass kisser” (nice of Trump to perfume his ass before demanding kisses), but if that didn’t work, it’d be clear the man can’t even break wind competently.

  45. 45.

    Matt McIrvin

    @debbie:

    TFG had squat to do with low gas prices.

    He did, actually–he kissed Putin’s ass which probably kept the ransomware trolls down. These guys want us to be under Putin’s thumb again.

  46. 46.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Ken: There was a meme going around showing the price of gas incredibly low immediately before Obama was inaugurated. It’d only work on you if you were really motivated to forget everything that actually happened back then (including the fact that the price of gas had been sky-high right before everything crashed).

  47. 47.

    Just Chuck

    @Ken:

    Though even Bush II never managed to get negative spot prices. That took TFG’s very special touch.

    That was Saudi Arabia’s MBS, deciding he’d start dumping oil to start a price war against US natural gas.  Then the pandemic hit.  Oops.

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