Failing upwards is a Washington tradition, but even The Scrapbook was taken aback by the promotion of Jennifer Psaki from State Department spokesperson to White House director of communications. Psaki, along with her State Department colleague Marie Harf, had acquired quite the reputation for putting the “foggy” in Foggy Bottom.
When she wasn’t being obtuse, Psaki was just plain embarrassing. After she accused Russia of not living up to the “promise of hashtag,” her efforts to conflate diplomacy with silly social media stunts were roundly mocked. At one memorable press conference, she tried to articulate the U.S. Egypt policy. In response to her vapid and incoherent answer, the Associated Press’s Matt Lee told Psaki, “What you said says nothing. It’s like saying, ‘we support the right of people to breathe.’ ” At another press conference, Psaki was asked about the deteriorating security situation in Iraq. “There have been, certainly, gains made by the Iraqi Security Forces in Iraq,” she said. “I can go through some of those for you if that would be useful.” Psaki then proceeded to riffle through a notebook and came up with no examples. One could go on in this vein at some length.
Of course, the second-term Obama White House doesn’t exactly have a high bar for competence, let alone integrity. Psaki is replacing White House director of communications Jennifer Palmieri. Palmieri cut her teeth as John Edwards’s press secretary during his 2004 campaign and as an adviser to his 2008 campaign. Speaking of failing upwards, with all of this experience furthering the career of a slick southern politician who publicly betrayed his much-admired wife, Palmieri is, of course, leaving the White House to work on the Clinton campaign. As one former Al Gore adviser said to Bloomberg about Palmieri joining the Clinton campaign, “If you’re looking to establish trust and credibility from the beginning, you couldn’t do any better.”
Yes, “trust and credibility” are exactly the words that come to mind when one thinks of the mouthpiece for John Edwards and Barack “If You Like Your Plan . . .” Obama.
We hesitate to give Psaki the benefit of the doubt in her new gig, but let’s face it. If you were paid to go out every day and defend the Obama administration’s disastrous leading-from-behind, “strategic patience” foreign policy, you’d probably end up sounding like an idiot, too.
