Answers needed now
Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson has plenty of reasons to fear the press. He was fatally slow to respond in the early weeks of the covid-19 crisis. His former aide Dominic Cummings has offered up a Shakespearean level of vitriol in his revelatory tome about the shortcomings of his boss. There is that fight with the French. Lots of criticism on Afghanistan. Gas bills. Brexit fallout. Cabinet reshuffling.
But there was a relaxed Johnson at the White House, looking like he was having a great time, calling on British reporters to ask questions and engaging in the time-honored democratic practice of riposte and retort with the assigned representatives of his bosses, otherwise known as the electorate.
President Joe Biden has problems, too, beginning with the total chaos at the border involving overwhelmed border guards, thousands of impoverished Haitian migrants, and an immigration strategy so riven by internal disagreement within the administration that it cannot seem to make a single clear decision about anything.
There’s the fight over covid-19 booster shots with the Food and Drug Administration advisory panel, the administration’s waverings on vaccine mandates and covid policy, looming inflation, and the legacy of the indefensibly chaotic U.S. exit from Afghanistan.
No wonder, then, that Biden was heard to say “good luck,” when Johnson announced his intention to take questions from the media.
Conservatives often say that reporters have treated Biden with kid gloves compared with the prior administration. Few East Coast columnists rose up in indignation over the drone killings; had that been on Trump’s watch, newspaper opinion sections would have been ablaze with fury.
Johnson took care of his nation’s media as he should. But when U.S. reporters tried to question their own leader, Biden’s communications team basically drowned out their own boss and hustled reporters out of the room.
At that point, the Biden administration’s lack of transparency became too much even for sympathetic reporters. Many took to Twitter to say, in essence, why the heck is this administration so afraid of questions? Why indeed?
On Thursday, Biden administration communications director Jen Psaki tried to blame Johnson for disrupting her careful control of the event. That is a ridiculous argument. Reporters in the presence of world leaders are supposed to ask questions, especially at staged events.
The Biden communications team’s hustle served only to make their boss look worse. No chief executive should let himself be hustled out of a room like that for any reason other than a security concern.
No wonder the rest of the world was marveling at this bizarre American presidential reluctance to answer to the people. Is this not what we like to preach that the rest of the world should do?
Biden is an old hand at speaking to the press. He is skilled at the art of frank oratory and in paying attention to the emotional engagement of the listener. He is perfectly capable of defending himself. As he has an obligation to do exactly that.