June 23, 2021

Proof positive that no matter what Vice President Kamala Harris does, the winger press is going to skewer her for it. Witness Psaki-bomb masochist Peter Doocy in today's press briefing.

"About today's announcement, why is the vice president visiting the border this week, when earlier this month, she dismissed a trip like that, saying it would be a grand gesture?" he asked Jen Psaki.

She replied, smiling, "She also said, in an interview with NBC, that she would be open to going to the border if it was an appropriate time. She said that after she said that, so that's important context as well."

Not that Doocy would recognize context, since it's doubtful he's up to the "C"s, yet, but here we are.

He soldiered on, not having gotten his fill of correction, with the following: "Okay, and important context, I've got the NBC interview right here, she was talking about how she hasn't been to the border, she hasn't been to Europe, either. So, does she think that these two things are the same?"

Sure, Petey. Harris thinks Europe and the southern border are exactly the same.

Psaki was more professional, as usual, than I would have been.

"And again, Peter, I think she also said in the same interview that she would be open to going to the border at an appropriate time," Psaki began. "And what I'm conveying to you is that, well, as part of her assignment, she has, of course, hosted a number of bilateral engagements, she has visited the Northern Triangle, she has made a number of announcements about how to address root causes, that she was going to assess with the Department of Homeland Security and with the administration when it was the appropriate time to go." It was kind of her to explain that a visit to the border without doing any of the work behind solving the problem would indeed have been a visit only for show (as was, for example, gun-totin' Cancun Cruz's storming the border of his own state in a rowboat or something.)

It's more attention than Doocy deserves, but not as much...shall we say...pettiness?... as I would have doled out.

Psaki continued, "And I will note that we are at this point, in part, because we have made a great deal of progress. And if you look to just a few months ago, when 6,000 children were in border patrol facilities, we're now at the point where there is far less than a thousand. If you look to just a couple of months ago, when there were children who were waiting in border patrol facilities for more than a hundred hours, and they were certainly overcrowded, now it's less than 30 hours. In April, there were 22,000 kids in HHS facilities, and now that number is 14,000."

THERE'S that pettiness! Delivered with the killer smile only someone with actual facts and brains can convey. Yes, progress from the absolute sh*tshow immigration humanitarian disaster trump left for the Biden administration to address.

Perhaps stung, if he knew enough to understand he'd been owned once again, Doocy asked a fairly d*ckish question, even for him.

"Was it important for the White House to have her seen at the border before former president Trump has a visit there, next week?" he inquired of the Boss of Briefings.

I'm sorry, "have her seen?" It's almost as if these wingers can't fathom a politician doing anything for any other reason.

Psaki let him know exactly who is president right now, and why. "We made an assessment within our government about when it was an appropriate time for her to go to the border."

As if Biden, Harris, or anyone in this administration gives a rat's a$$ what trump does, or where he goes. Psaki may as well have said, "Biden's your daddy now, Pete."

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