I get why the Biden White House is concerned about Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Should the popular governor decide to make a presidential run in 2024, as many are anticipating, he would make a formidable opponent for either of the two largely incompetent figures that currently comprise the country's executive branch.
If Democrats inexplicably choose to prop President Biden up for a re-election bid, or if they stick with what seems to have been the original plan of attempting to promote Vice President Kamala Harris to an office she is woefully unprepared to handle, either will be completely outmatched by DeSantis: intellectually, stylistically, and charismatically.
As much as the progressive left may attempt to portray him as the second coming of Donald Trump, and despite a lapdog media that will do their part to push that narrative, DeSantis is a different man entirely. He may have Trump's tendency to fight back against critics, but he also has far more knowledge, experience, and political savvy.
Even Bill Maher acknowledged that the left had humiliated itself attacking DeSantis, a man he called a "voracious consumer of the scientific literature," on his COVID leadership.
So I get it. The White House is nervous about DeSantis and therefore is doing all they can, and using every opportunity they have, to use their platform and media allies to discredit him. Fair enough, that's politics.
But when the same White House that has spent months bemoaning and decrying the proliferation of "misinformation" among the masses engages in that very activity themselves, it's not fair and it's not politics. It's hypocritical deceit that should be called out.
On Monday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki belched forth this little verbal tantrum:
"I will note, as you touched on there, 20% of the cases we're seeing are in Florida. There are steps and precautions that can be taken, including encouraging people to get vaccinated, encouraging people to wear masks, including allowing schools to mandate masks, and allowing kids to wear masks, which is not the current state of play in Florida. So, you know, at a certain point, leaders are going to have to choose whether they're going to follow public health guidelines or they're going to follow politics, and we certainly encourage all governors to follow the public health guidelines."
The president's spokeswoman made four claims about Governor DeSantis in that response:
- DeSantis is not encouraging people to get vaccinated.
- DeSantis is not encouraging people to wear masks.
- DeSantis is not allowing schools to mandate masks.
- DeSantis is not allowing kids to wear masks.
Claim one is demonstrably false. In a recent speech, Governor DeSantis specifically prodded Floridians to get vaccinated, saying that doing so was, "saving lives."
Claim four is just clownish hackery, conjuring up images of an angry governor ripping masks off of elementary schoolchildren as they step off the bus. In actuality, DeSantis recently signed an order that allows parents to make all decisions regarding whether or not their children wear masks when attending schools. If a Floridian parent wants their kid wearing one, that child is wearing one.
Claim two is subjective at best. The governor's orders have left mask wearing up to the individual's discretion, and his rhetoric is not actively discouraging people from wearing masks. But it is true that DeSantis is not interested in taking a leading role in the media's COVID-theater by donning a face diaper for the cameras and recording PSA's for "Mask-Up, America." True to his form, there's actually a reason for that.
In other words, DeSantis seems to recognize that mask mandates actually work against the far more important and consequential effort to get people vaccinated.
Which leaves claim three standing alone as the only true statement Psaki made in her anti-DeSantis diatribe. Of course, given the recent data we have about the efficacy and usefulness of masks in slowing or stopping the spread of this virus and its variants, it's far from a blight on the governor that he is objecting to blanket mask decrees from on high.
Here's what is a blight, however: the executive branch of American government issuing public statements laced with politically motivated inaccuracies and falsehoods amidst a supposed international pandemic.
I'm sure social media suspensions and mainstream media censure are just around the corner for them, right?
