With no other issues in the country to contend with the press cheers as the Biden administration is becoming unhinged.
The Washington Post has been on a roll with the delusions lately. Glenn Kessler spat out a “fact” check to support Stacey Abrams and her idiotic sonogram hot take. Then there was the recent attempt to recalibrate Biden’s economy by telling us there are 7 Ways A Recession Could Be Good For You Financially. Now we can toss another stunted log on this pyre of common sense.
Just take a look at this headline and try to imagine what it would take to write this out and not have the first inclination to look at it critically. The Biden administration sets up a new diplomatic post, and WaPo just regurgitates this announcement without any questions.
Monica Medina is taking on a new role as special envoy for biodiversity and water resources, the State Department announced Wednesday. The appointment underscores the Biden administration’s desire to protect land and waters not just at home but to also conserve habitats abroad.
With everything else going on in the country they think this is a fine use of administration resources to create an ambassador to plants and animals. Just to underscore the tone-deaf messaging and the misplaced sense of priorities, Biden has taken this step when after more than a year and a half, dozens of ambassador positions remain unfilled. Countries such as Brazil, India, and Italy still are looking at vacancies, but THIS position has taken priority.
Not only did the paper’s national environmental reporter enthusiastically detail this move, but Kessler also joined in with his approval, repeating the announcement. But the famed fact checker also followed suit with the WaPo report in being notably uncritical. There was also the matched avoidance of a particular detail concerning who is the newly christened Ambassador To Fauna.
Monica Medina had previously been serving the administration with one of those rather uniquely D.C. official titles that manage to be both unwieldy in length and opaque in explaining things. She has been the State Department Assistant Secretary for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, which sounds pretty damned close to already being a plant and animal ambassador, but I am no Washington policy wonk, so what do I know?
Notably absent however in the gushing coverage from the Washington Post is another title Medina sports on her resume’. She is also known as Mrs. White House Chief of Staff. It somehow never occurred to Kessler or Dino Grandoni that it might be deemed an important factor that Medina is married to Ron Klain. After four years of us being coached that this type of nepotism and insider deal-making in the administration is a threat to our democracy, one might expect that this detail might be highlighted. The appearance of a cush administration post created out of whole cloth for the spouse of the guy widely regarded as running the show seems a vital component of this story.
But here we go, busying ourselves with trivialities that do not have any impact on the overall efforts that are undertaken to save our planet by the former State Department Assistant Secretary for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, and now newly minted U.S. Ambassador To Nature.
This is a deeply serious appointment made by a deeply serious administration filled with deeply serious adults, for a change. Questioning Monica Medina’s post probably means you reject science and hate the environment. Might as well toss in a threat to democracy, for good measure.