The reaction to President Biden’s muttered curse of a Fox News reporter is more fascinating than the miscue itself.
Peter Doocy, the Fox News White House reporter who, like his employer, enjoys tweaking the Biden administration, asked the president a completely in-bounds question at Biden’s public appearance Monday: “Do you think inflation is a political liability in the midterms?”
It speaks poorly of the president that he didn’t have the presence of mind to say something like, “Good question, Pete. Inflation has certainly proven to be a political liability for previous administrations. And we’re working to get it under control.”
Instead, the president, apparently unaware that a microphone was nearby, insulted Doocy’s mother with his remark and made the reporter a hero to his network’s viewers. Like Claude Rains in “Casablanca,” Biden’s critics were simply shocked — shocked! — that a president could be so snide to a reporter.
Indeed, it is hard to remember an instance when a previous president was that rude to a reporter who asked pesky questions. Thinking ... thinking ... checking the mental archives ... what former president seemed to take delight from insulting reporters?
Ah, here’s one: Donald Trump! Remember his famous verbal tussles with CNN reporter Jim Acosta? Including the one in 2018 when Trump told him, “CNN should be ashamed of itself having you working for them. You are a rude, terrible person.”
Granted, Trump avoided using any foul language during that remark to Acosta. And granted, Acosta’s persistence in grilling the president could be grating at times. But his response to Acosta could be judged every bit as insulting as what Biden said about Doocy this week.
Erik Wemple, a media critic for The Washington Post, noted Tuesday that Doocy was just doing his job when he asked Biden the question about inflation.
“Yes, it’s Doocy’s job to draw intemperate remarks from President Biden,” Wemple wrote. Later in the column he added, “Relations between reporters and top public officials should be adversarial, though not profane.”
Biden and Trump have served as presidents of the United States. They have to make tough decisions as a course of the job. Neither they nor other elected officials should be surprised when a reporter asks them tough, difficult or embarrassing questions.
Biden should get a little credit for calling Doocy after his remark to “clear the air.” Doocy told Sean Hannity that the president told him his remark was nothing personal.
Give Doocy credit, by the way, for understanding how the incident benefitted both him and the press as a whole.
When Hannity asked if Biden apologized for what he said — because Trump always did that when he was rude to reporters, right? — Doocy said he doesn’t need an apology: “He can call me whatever he wants as long as it gets him talking.”
