Everybody makes mistakes. I make them. You make them. Making mistakes is human. Making a habit out of making mistakes, however, is a sure sign of incompetence or, worse, psychosis.
With that said, White House Spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre and the rest of the Biden communications crew have their hands full. Joe Biden makes a lot of mistakes, as do the people who put together White House press releases.
In Wednesday’s press briefing, Jean-Pierre had to apologize for yet another mistake by Biden. In doing so, she further exposed not only Biden’s incompetence, but that of his communications team as well.
Jean-Pierre had just finished sluffing off a question about there being no wall between Joe Biden and his family’s business dealings with her usual response to hard-to-handle topics: “Go ask somebody else.”
That’s when a reporter hit her with a question she couldn’t run from, because it had to do with the White House communications team. “I have another question about fact-checking here at the White House,” the reporter said. And it was a doozy.
“The initial statement from the president about the passing of Governor Bill Richardson included condolences for his wife of 50 years, Barbara, and their daughter, Heather. That line about Heather, the daughter, has been removed because they didn’t have a daughter named Heather — or a daughter. So can you walk us through how these press releases are fact-checked; who signs off on them in the end; and then, in this case, how this error was made?”
Some of the exchange was posted on the social media platform X by RNC Research.
Karine Jean-Pierre apologizes for issuing a press release with condolences for former Gov. Bill Richardson’s non-existent daughter named Heather:
“We do have fact checkers here” pic.twitter.com/a9ECf6i7ud
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) September 6, 2023
To KJP’s credit, she didn’t try to duck the question. She answered it directly, maybe too directly.
“So, look, we apologize for the error,” Jean-Pierre began. “Certainly, that is not something that, you know, we want to do, right? We want to make sure that we get this information out clearly and in a straightforward way to the American people. So, that was not done intentionally. And certainly, when we realized that error, it was removed from the website.”
She wasn’t finished.
“We do have fact-checkers here. We do have multiple people who take a look at — at the press releases, especially from the president. This was just a miss, unfortunately. And we apologize for that miss.”
Did you catch that? The communications team has multiple people who look at press releases, especially from Joe Biden. Now that might mean Biden’s press release receives more scrutiny because he’s the president, but that wouldn’t make sense. Certainly, a press release from Secretary of State Antony Blinken on the talks with Ukraine about the war with Russia would warrant similar scrutiny.
A more satisfactory reason for especially scrutinizing Biden’s press releases is that Biden makes a lot of mistakes that need to be cleaned up — so many that missing a mistake here and there is inevitable.
But that’s quite a mistake. What fact-checker(s) worth their salt could miss the fact that Bill Richardson, the former Democrat Governor of New Mexico and diplomat who passed away in his sleep this month, did not have a daughter named Heather or, for that matter, a daughter? The White House fact-checkers would be the best of the best — or so one would think.
Who’s fact-checking the fact-checkers?
Jean-Pierre shouldn’t feel too bad. Her compatriots over at CNN had to publish a correction explaining Richardson did not have a daughter. CNN — a stoolie for all things left — even went so far as to publish a litany of Biden’s false claims during his first year as president. Maybe they got tired of trying to keep up with the saga of the “Biden lies” early on.
As usual, though, Jean-Pierre went to bat for her boss and tried to make excuses. And, as usual, she muffed it up.
“It is — you know, we do — I just want to reiterate our condolences to the family,” she stammered. “And I think the President actually spoke — he was shouted a question over the weekend about — I believe on Saturday — about Bill Richardson. And he spoke to — he — he responded to that. And I know Bill Richardson was a friend to the president.”
If Biden was a friend of Bill Richardson, wouldn’t he know Richardson didn’t have a daughter named Heather? Don’t keep digging the hole, KJP. It’s too deep already.
And yet Jean-Pierre still wasn’t finished.
“And so, again, our — we apologize for — for that error. And certainly, that is not something that we want to see happen. And it is not — it is not a common occurrence — right? — that happens from this White House.”
Not a common occurrence? There must be something in the water at the White House. Whatever it is, it’s strong, and it’s as toxic as Everclear. Too much grain alcohol can blind a person.
Too much of Joe Biden’s incompetence, apparently, rubs off on the staff.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
