Biden's Praetorian Media Guard

In an impressive new low, the White House sends impeachment coverage guidelines up a flagpole, and the press salutes

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy

Biden White House spokesperson Ian Sams sent out a letter to news organizations Tuesday, giving instructions on how they should cover (or non-cover, as it were) the Republican impeachment inquiry announced that day by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. News organizations then reported on administration instructions as they followed them, a display of craven supplication that would have impressed Erich Honecker.

Walter Kirn and I will be musing/retching over this on tomorrow’s America This Week — Walter’s take is this is a coming-out party for state media — but in brief, this episode produced prostrations so grotesque, it’ll be a shock if they don’t end up on an NFL Films-style reporter blooper reel some day.

In one instance Sams was able to quote himself in a tweet less than 24 hours after the Washington Post obligingly used, in a headline, language from his letter about GOP efforts to “muddy waters.” Once this kind of thing would have been considered embarrassing, but this crew just nuzzles and begs for more. Already all summer, they’ve been helping blanket a quote assiduously kept out of headlines: “Five million to pay one Biden, and five million to another Biden.”