So, Katie Zacharia made her debut this week as the new White House Press Secretary.
It did not go well.
I mean, she’s right that Trump is the main generator of energy in the midterms, but it is opposition energy.
Still, she sounds like a contestant in a regional pageant, not the spokesperson for the most powerful government in the world. And, of course, the sycophancy earns the “Meanwhile, In North Korea” label.
More here:
It is hard to watch for several reasons.
- It is no exaggeration that she lacks the basic skills of adequately reading and speaking from the podium.
- She is clearly in over her head in terms of information/how to answer questions. She was only given softballs from friendly media outlets and she couldn’t handle those.
- Her praise of Trump truly is North Korea-level stuff.
All of this is funny on one level, but it is also deeply serious. While I have always known that the White House Press Secretary’s job is to get the President’s views of the news out to the public, and therefore spin was always possible, no prior President has ever sent out a pure propagandist to the podium. This has been the Trump pattern since Sean Spicer insisted that Trump’s first inauguration crowd was the biggest. Period!
Zacharia is just the culmination of a long trend.
And while Karoline Leavitt was very much a propagandist, at least she could read and speak without looking and sounding like a college sophomore doing her first class presentation. Granted, having the incompetence be more obvious is better than not, so I will take that silver lining, I guess.
And I honestly don’t like to comment on people’s appearances, but something truly weird is going on here.
Here are the last three Press Secretaries (via Adam Kinzinger):
And Natalie Harp:
I’m just having a hard time accepting that their resumes and experience are getting them their jobs.
It is all unprofessional, bizarre, and misogynistic because Trump clearly likes women who look a certain way and is hiring them on that basis.
This administration is a disgrace on so many levels.
