June 8, 2022

"What we're trying to say...." Just say it! Otherwise it sounds as though you're not really saying it but referring to something written down somewhere.

I was going to say that reminded me of George H.W. Bush's "Message: I care," but then I found that old clip and watched it...

  

... and even though that still makes me laugh, by contrast to Karine Jean-Pierre's performance, it felt kind of authentic. What's similar is the sense that he was referring to talking points that he wasn't supposed to say out loud. It sees that he'd been given the note that he ought to convey the message "I care," and instead of showing his caring, he stated the contents of the note. That's what Jean-Pierre did. It seems that she couldn't directly say the economy is in something like a good place. She knew that's what she was supposed to say. And then what she said was revealing that background scenario: They've figured out what they should try to say. That gives the whole game away!

61 comments:

rhhardin said...

"What we're trying to say" is a normal marker for a following restatement of something in different words. It's not a mistake. She may be idiotic in addition but that's not the criticism given.

Dave Begley said...

KJP is an idiot, but she's immune from being fired. Can't fire the historic Black lesbian.

gilbar said...

Serious Question
Did they hire Karine; because she was The One Person, on Earth, that made Biden look smart in comparison?

What i'm trying to say is: Is there a Stupider Looking person, on Earth, than Karine Jean-Pierre?

Rollo said...

Perhaps Truth in Advertising laws ought to require all politicians to speak in "Message: I care" terms.

Biden. "Message: I am compassionate and empathetic and grandfatherly. Stop asking me about Hunter's laptop or my getting everything wrong and messing everything up and let me sniff your hair."

Trump. "Message: Yes, I'm kind of a clown and a loudmouth, but I'm good for the economy and your 401k"

Amadeus 48 said...

HW Bush was remarkably non-glib. I have always thought that HW Bush's comment was authentic--I don't think he was reading a talking points cue card. That's just the way he expressed himself. It's like the time that Ronald Reagan supposedly did not recognize his son Michael in a receiving line at Michael's school: according to Michael, that was a joke he and his father regularly performed in public receiving lines. The numbskulls in the press turned it into an example of Reagan's supposed callousness and cluelessness.

Beasts of England said...

If she weren't such an unrepentant racist, I'd feel a little bit sorry for her. She's in way over her head and can't reply to a single question without checking her stupid notebook, but, in fairness, she's trying to defend the indefensible.

wendybar said...

Fecking liars. This administration that was installed is a joke, and anybody who can't see it needs to seek help immediately.

Greg The Class Traitor said...

"What we're trying to say is that the economy is in a better place than it has been historically"

So, they're claiming the economy is now better than it was during the worst of the Great Depression?

While that's currently true (we'll have to check back in Oct and see what the inflation rate is then), that's not what you call a "good selling point"

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

The economy is great - in the insider-game world. The rich are richer after chi com get democrats elected virus.

Kevin said...

Message: All is well.

Unfortunately this Administration is an inflation denier and anti-economic science.

Fasten your seatbelts.

Not Sure said...

I think this may be worse: "We are in a good position to take on inflation." Just replace "inflation" with "water" and the Titanic comparisons write themselves.

Bob Boyd said...

Jean-Pierre: "What we're trying to say is that the economy is in a better place than it has been historically."

In other words, things have been worse.

Enigma said...

KJP is completely out of her depth, but perhaps she makes Biden look good by comparison? If enough insiders admit to her deficiencies, or if she does something truly dangerous to Party control, they'll eject her.

Ejecting her would indicate a slight return to functionality in matching jobs to skills and abilities. End of the anti-Trump fixation?

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

She isn't so great - but she is the right color. the left are losing the black vote... so they need all the phony pandering they can get.

Eleanor said...

What she is trying to say is that in the future this time in history will look wonderful compared to what things will be like then.

tim in vermont said...

Remember Lloyd Bentsen in his debate with Dan Quayle when he said "I could create a hot economy by kiting hundreds of billions of dollars in bad checks too!" I miss those Democrats.

Ice Nine said...

Much ado about nothing. Far be it from me to defend this clown, Jean-Pierre, who, granted, reads a lot of her answers, but fair's fair. "What we're (or, What I am) trying to say" is a very common rhetorical device that is heard "all the time" in common discourse. There is nothing in this clip to suggest that she was regurgitating some written directive or script somewhere. I would bet good money that if one were to see the whole exchange one would see that she was, quite normally, simply reiterating and clarifying something she had just said that had been challenged.

Drago said...

KJP engages in gadfly/Howard levels of lying....and she isn't even as "good" at it as they are!

TreeJoe said...

"We are in a good place to take on inflation" = We haven't done anything yet



Rusty said...

81 million votes, eh. Sure.

Humperdink said...

Press secretary for Biden is without question the worst job in DC. Going out daily and trying to put lipstick on this pig is an impossible task. Being an apprentice does not help. At least Jen Winnapsaki could snark her through these briefings.

Temujin said...

"What I'm trying to say is don't believe your lyin' eyes."

Who do these people think they're talking to? Oh wait, Talking points reception area.

Quaestor said...

Althouse writes "It seems that she couldn't directly say the economy is in something like a good place. She knew that's what she was supposed to say."

Althouse backflips through all eleven dimensions to avoid the obvious, the obvious being the absurd, preposterous, even criminal lies and evasions Joe Biden demands from his "press secretary" who is either too timid or too corrupt to reject.

This is "pride" month, I'm told. Judging from the displays pride is the Newspeak synonym for degeneracy. Enough of pride! Americans are sick of it. One assumes Miss Jean-Pierre is well-stoked with pride, to the gunwales. (Someone ought to remind her about pride and imminent plummets.) Pride is extremely cheap. What Americans long to see in their public servants is personal honor.

Clyde said...

The economy is average: Worse than yesterday, better than tomorrow.

Spiros said...

How about this stupidity?

“History is a reminder of what’s possible.”

These words were spoken by President George W. Bush after a tour of the gas chambers at Auschwitz. Profound! Seriously, I hate these stupid, unrepentant war criminals.

Also, the Bush family wealth has as its ultimate source the exploitation of slave labor at Nazi concentration camps:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/sep/25/usa.secondworldwar

You can't suck more than that!

Jupiter said...

Message; we couldn't care less.

William said...

Having an inarticulate lightweight like Jean-Pierre as the White House Press Secretary is farcical … except for the fact that it makes our country a global laughing stock.

Just sayin'

gspencer said...

AA at the podium.

"What we're trying to say is that I'm black, a lesbian, a female, an immigrant, and if you utter one syllable of criticisms of me then you're racist, homophobic, anti-woman, and a redneck who hates immigrants."

The Tangerine Tornado said...

Authenticity-if you can fake that you've got it made.

Charlie said...

KJP is really awful at her job, has anyone pointed that out yet?

Charlie said...

KJP is really awful at her job, has anyone pointed that out yet?

Skeptical Voter said...

The poor lady flounders. Team Biden needs her as press secretary like a fish needs a bicycle. So to speak.

It's actually cruel to put a person so ill suited for the task on public display on a daily basis. That's particularly true when her immediate predecessor was Baghdad Bob in a skirt, and KJP suffers by comparison.

Leland said...

Her follow up "what I'm trying to explain to you" is an expression of "you don't get it". She continues and mentions that "we are in a good position to take on inflation". Who is the we?

I can see that she's doing well for herself with inflation. Personally, I'm doing ok with the inflation to date because I've always lived well within my means, so it is just a bit of slack being taken up. But I know most people, right or wrong and mostly wrong behavior on their part, live paycheck to paycheck, and when their next paycheck is now going more towards their commute to work and putting food on the table, then other bills suffer. I can see people are starting to miss bill payments, which will snowball into other stuff as it did in 2008. Only this time, it won't just be a housing crisis.

Even if I could believe a Paul Krugman or a Janet Yellen via Jean-Pierre that the US economy can survive this inflation (as it did under Carter), I'm fairly sure it is going to hurt the majority of families. And they are going to get hurt while Democrats focus on January 6th, making anytime abortion legal, and paying off affluent college graduates' debt. I think it is they who don't get that we are not in a good position to handle inflation. There, I said it.

mikee said...

"We're in a good position to take on inflation." Stuck at the bottom of a deep hole, the Press Secretary insists that the administration is ready, willing and able to continue digging.

Ann Althouse said...

"It's not a mistake."

I didn't say it was a mistake, but it is a "mistake" in the sense that it's not what you should say. It's too revealing of what's in your head. It's like GHWB's "Message:"

And she's the spokesperson. She should be good at speaking. If she isn't, she shouldn't admit it. She should keep acting like she's speaking perfectly clearly and correctly and try to get it right. Not SAY she's trying to get it right! It's like Amber Heard's lawyer saying "I'm trying. That's what you're thinking, but don't SAY it!

Yancey Ward said...

Shorter Biden Administration:

"Who are you going to believe, us or your lying eyes?"

jaydub said...

I think what she's trying to say is that the economy is so bad that anything they do will cause an improvement, which puts them in a good position. Unfortunately, she's discounting Brandon's demonstrated ability to always reach a higher level of suck.

robother said...

"Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive...."

Of course, bobbing and weaving describes the basic (boxing) posture of every White House press secretary. I feel sorry for anyone trying to be the mouthpiece for Joe Palooka. When someone with the natural craft of Jen Psaki lasts, what, 15 months, what chance does a rookie like KJP have?

Anthony said...

KJP is an idiot, but she's immune from being fired. Can't fire the historic Black lesbian.

I can't help but see our newest Supreme Court justice the same way. . . .

Ice Nine said...

>Ice Nine said...
"I would bet good money that if one were to see the whole exchange one would see that she was, quite normally, simply reiterating and clarifying something she had just said that had been challenged."<

And, it turns out, that in fact is exactly what was happening.

https://youtu.be/5p4IQuJQZns?t=254

Brian said...

What we're trying to say is that the economy is in a better place than it has been historically

I can't say the economy is in a better place historically, because that's idiotic and I don't really believe that, so I'm going to preface this with "What we're trying to say".

It's a cognitive dissonance tell.

Joe Smith said...

She is too dumb to know that she's dumb.

Brian McKim and/or Traci Skene said...

When someone is _trying_ to say something, that usually means they're trying to _not_ say something else.

Michael K said...

I think she is not as skilled a liar as Psaki. Give her time. She'll get better or Admiral Kirby will come back.

Howard said...

Their so fucked, they keep putting lipstick on the pigs asshole thinking "that's the ticket"

Narayanan said...

Performative speech by NPC's?

rhhardin said...

It's a marker meaning forget what I said, here's new words for it.

From the preface of Levinas's Totality and Infinity

The word by way of preface which seeks to break through the screen stretched between the author and the reader by the book itself does not give itself out as a word of honor. But it belongs to the very essence of language, which consists in continually undoing its phrase by the foreword or exegesis, in unsaying the said, in attempting to restate without ceremonies what has already been ill understood in the inevitable ceremonial in which the said delights.

Narayanan said...

KJP is an idiot, but she's immune from being fired. Can't fire the historic Black lesbian.
====
FJB could have nominated KJP for USSC and KJB for press spokeseress?

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Karine is probably in better touch with what's really economically happening out there than the spinmeisters who write stuff down for her to say. When possible (if I may contextualize her) she's conscientiously distancing from stuff she knows aren't truthful. Shes new, we need to give her the benefit of the doubt. Cut the gal some slack.

effinayright said...

Back in a State U class, I remember a student responding to a point made in the prof's lecture by inquiring: "So what you're saying is..."

To which said prof interrupted: "Mr. Wilson, what I'm saying is what...I...said."

Heh

Greg The Class Traitor said...

Not Sure said...
I think this may be worse: "We are in a good position to take on inflation." Just replace "inflation" with "water" and the Titanic comparisons write themselves.

LOL. You win the thread.

I'd never before seen that comparison

Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...

A good spox for JB: speaks gibberish, cute face, touchable hair.

Rabel said...

I'm increasingly irritated by speakers who use a meaningless hand motion to emphasize every fucking syllable they utter.

I'll try to get over it.

Bruce Hayden said...

She seems really bad at her job. That isn’t what the FJB Administration needs right now. They are in deep shit trouble, and need someone who can put the lipstick on the pig, and make people believe it. She can’t, and I think it is because she is an Affirmative Action hire. The extreme left is probably impressed that they have finally broken the color barrier here. Everyone else is probably just thinking that this is just one more example of their extreme incompetence. There are plenty of Blacks who could do the job credibly well, or at least as well as Jen did. But someone in the White House picked this incompetent.

We shouldn’t be surprised, since this is the same Administration that picked a former mayor of a small Midwest city as the Treasury Secretary, just because he is gay, and then had him go off on a lengthy (much longer than regular parents usually get) maternity leave in order to bond with their new babies, right when all of the container ships backed up outside the LA and LB harbors. Instead of cutting short his (?) leave, and rushing back to handle the crisis, we have pictures of the happy couple, one wearing a fake nursing harness, mugging before the camera with their newly purchased babies.

This is a seriously unserious and incompetent Administration. And picking this incompetent as their spokesperson is just another example of their incompetence in recruiting and hiring for critical jobs. What they need is someone like Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Trump’s WH spokesperson, who won the Arkansas Republican primary for Governor yesterday, with 89% of the Republican vote, and maybe 4x the votes for all of the Dem candidates combined. Instead, they picked political correct incompetence.

gilbar said...

Jupiter said...
Message; we couldn't care less.

Here's Sen Debbie Stabenow letting you know, that they CAN, In Fact, Care Even LESS!
"I just have to say just on the issue of that at gas prices; after waiting for a long time to have enough chips in this country to finally get my electric vehicle, I got it and drove it from Michigan to here this last weekend and went by every single gas station. It didn’t matter how high it was."

She is BRAGGING about having 'enough chips' that it DIDN'T MATTER to HER, how high prices were. LITERALLY saying; "let Them Eat Cake! I DO!!"

Another old lawyer said...

On whose recommendation was she given the job?

Brian said...

But someone in the White House picked this incompetent.

The White House is being run by millenials who binge watched West Wing episodes. They are sitting around a conference table using the "no such thing as bad ideas" brainstorming method, and these sorts of picks end up being the result.

a former mayor of a small Midwest city as the Treasury Secretary,

I know you know, but he's Transportation Secretary not Treasury Secretary. Goldman Sachs would have never allowed Pete to be Treasury secretary.

Rollo said...

She's less skillful an obfuscator and liar than Psaki, but the problem is that they both are defending indefensible incompetence.

Gahrie said...

The new Whitehouse spokesman should be Kirby, but you can't have a competent White man replace an incompetent Black woman.

donald said...

"Karine is probably in better touch with what's really economically happening out there than the spinmeisters who write stuff down for her to say. When possible (if I may contextualize her) she's conscientiously distancing from stuff she knows aren't truthful. Shes new, we need to give her the benefit of the doubt. Cut the gal some slack".

Absolutely nobody in that administration deserves any fucking slack for anything or any benefit of any doubt. Every single member if that administration is a monster and every single one that has committed a crime needs to marched out in cuffs and leg irons. What a ridiculous statement.

Bruce Hayden said...

@Brian - thanks. Yes, I meant the Secretary of Transportation. Another seriously unserious FJB appointee, whose credentials appear to revolve around his(?) sexual orientation, and the results have been as bad as expected