The Witch in the White House

Added to post on Jan. 31: Enjoyed this interview with the new press secretary. It's with an old friend, so it's a very favorable environment, but that intelligent, competent Willow vibe is not reduced by this:

It’s been 10 days since Joe Biden was inaugurated president of the United States.

We need a Washington press corps that will hold him accountable. And we need a president whose administration speaks straight and clearly, answering reasonable questions. Being president means you’re a lightning rod for criticism—and as has been said, if you can’t stand that heat, get out of the kitchen.

Still, one of the many odd aspects of the recent odd administration of Donald Trump was the way in which press briefings at the White House began, and then how they ground to a halt. Apparently, neither Trump nor his minions saw answering questions as a part of what government should do. Overall, the White House held few press briefings, with one Trump press secretary giving exactly zero during her tenure.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki during her first press briefing on Jan. 20, 2021. She has giving a briefing every business day since--a sharp contrast to the previous administration. All images on this post from Wikimedia Commons, both of these are screen shots from White House video.

I just watched the official White House You Tube video of Jen Psaki’s first press briefing, held the evening of Jan. 20. And then I watched samples of the two initial Trump press briefings—the odd crowd size rant at an unscheduled Saturday session on Jan. 21, 2017, and the first official press briefing on Jan. 23. They were both by then White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer.

Sean Spicer at a press berating session.

The contrast between the Sean Crazy Show and the Psaki Fact Briefing was clear. Sean didn’t get along well with reporters—but then again, Sean was telling outright and obvious lies. Remember the bizarre, fact-denying narrative of crowd size during those odd first days of the Trump presidency? It was a foreshadowing of many strange days to come, of President Trump urging Americans to ingest bleach or altering a weather map with a Sharpie.

Sean Spicer, what a guy! And he was followed by three female press secretaries, none known for their factual truth telling.

Future governor of Arkansas, Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

There was Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who famously claimed that she had heard from “countless” members of the FBI about how grateful they were when President Trump fired FBI director James Comey. (Maybe zero counts as countless?) And Sarah is now on her way to becoming governor of Arkansas, heaven help us.

Stephanie Grisham

Next in line was Stephanie Grisham, who served for about a year and gave exactly zero press briefings. I think we should demand a refund of her government salary—White House press secretaries are named by the president, but as government employees, they work for us, and a press secretary who spends about a year never speaking publicly with the press in the briefing room is not fulfilling her job.

Kayleigh McEnany--I shall smile and I shall lie and then I shall fade away.

Then there was Kayleigh McEnany. What to say about her? In the middle of a pandemic, she defended the U.S. leaving the WHO because of it’s “clear bias towards China.” McEnany is no ninny—she’s an educated woman, but she seemed to think sniping at the press was her role.

Now, we have Jen Psaki, a veteran of the Obama administration, speaking to reporters in the White House briefing room. She gives a briefing every business day, which seems like a good thing for press secretary to do. She speaks calmly and factually—in listening to her first briefing, held on Jan. 20, I didn’t detect any point where she clearly lied or deliberately mislead the press.

And she didn’t get lost in irrelevancies. There were no wild claims about crowd size, nor berating the press for imagined slights.

What a breath of fresh air. I don’t want the press to go all euphoric—their job is to hold the powers-that-be accountable, and it’s inevitable nice old Joe will have to make hard and controversial decisions that Psaki will have to defend. Reporters need to ask her hard questions, but based on her first 10 days on the job, I think she’ll handle them calmly and competently without resorting to carpet bombing attacks on the media.

She’s off to a good start. Forgive me for this, but to me, she looks and sounds like Willow from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" who grew up and moved to Washington after attending UCS (University of California—Sunnydale). She has more confidence now, but still has the same kind of nerdy, intelligent demeanor.

And after the craziness of the past four years, it’s kind of a comfort to have a calm, smart, powerful and competent witch as White House press secretary.

Alyson Lee Hannigan (left) who played Willow on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," an mage from her Buffy days, and Jen Psaki (right) from when she was a wee lass working in the Obama Administration. Clearly the same person. Witches can be tricky.

 

An Emotional Trip Down Derecho Memory Lane

 

Aug. 10, 2020—a day that will loom large in the memory of Cedar Rapidians.

This week, on Wednesday, I zoomed into a session sponsored by The Gazette, our daily paper. Their four-person photojournalism staff shared many images that they made and discussed memories of the devastating storm.

A tornado can be bad. A big, powerful one may stay on the ground for a hundred miles, leaving a sometimes mile-wide swath of destruction. But such monster twisters are rare even here in Iowa where we are used to tornado safety drills and listen for those warning sirens when the summer skies darken.

But the derecho was a whole level of crazy beyond that. We were expecting a storm Aug. 10, but nobody expected an unusual bow of destruction, a bent wall of straight-line winds that would sweep across much of the state, flattening crops, ripping off roofs and uprooting trees as it blew and blew.

Aug. 10, after the storm, C Avenue traffic slows to a crawl as street is blocked by power lines. (Not a Gazette image, see theirs on their video above, all images in this post are mine).

Hurricane-force winds devastated wide areas of the state. Cedar Rapids, its immediately connected communities such as Marion, Hiawatha and Robins, and the small towns in the county surrounding us were hit with a storm that started as a thunderstorm but quickly escalated and seemed like it would never stop. “Derecho” means both “right” and “straight on” in Spanish, and the Spanish word labels a straight-on storm whose violence is hard to image if you have not lived through one.

And in many ways the derecho hasn’t ended. Many homes were damaged—apartments and houses—and the impact of derecho devastation still reverberates in town. One result is that this city, which just last summer featured a beautiful canopy of mature trees, will take a generation to recover its shade. Me and my family were lucky—even though our houses were damaged, and we just signed a contract this week for one derecho-recovery project with more to come.

Last August! I remember the sense of survival instinct in those dark powerless days following the storm. Much food was spoiled, gasoline was not to be had in town, and we had to get creative. But we were among the fortunate one—our problems were manageable and our house inhabitable even if not fully intact.

In Cedar Rapids, we are blessed to have a local newspaper owned by a local company. In many places, photojournalists are an endangered species. We have four talented photographers who freeze historic moments in time, and The Gazette published a book based on their images.

At the session, moderator Mary Sharp noted that Gazette photographers made more than 10,000 images of the storm and its aftermath, and used 1,000 by printing them or sharing them online.

Then, 195 of them were used to publish a book about that storm. The Gazette is donating a part of the proceeds to replanting trees.

Aug. 11, campus of Mount Mercy University. There was a much beloved grove of huge pines that were in the lawn by Warde Hall. Past tense, they are gone with the wind now. Here, one lies on the building the day after the storm. The campus suffered millions of dollars in damage.

Each photographer took turns describing the story behind the images shown Wednesday. Andy Abeyta shot both the image that become the book cover—it was chosen partly because the image had room for the cover text—and the more famous front-page image of passersby aiding a truck driver caught in an overturned truck.

As Abeyta described it, he was in Iowa City that day to make images of a protest there. He was returning to Cedar Rapids when the once in a century (knock on wood) storm blew through. He saw a truck that had just overturned, parked and ran back to see if he could help—but three other people were already there to aid the driver, so Abeyta took out his cell phone and shot some images.

It is an interesting note that a media photographer with fine digital SLR cameras ended up capturing this key moment with his phone. But I think angle, timing and an eye that can quickly see the possible images—I always tell my students that journalism requires imagination, and I do not mean making stuff up but rather recognizing possibilities in gathering information or making images—are a photojournalist’s most important tools.

It’s not the camera, it’s the photographer. Nothing substitutes for recognizing you’re in the right place at a key moment and using whatever tool you have.

All of the photographers—Liz Martin, the Gazette’s head photographer; Jim Slosiarek, who has recorded the first draft of Cedar Rapids history for many years; Rebecca Miller; and Abeyta told interesting stories of many images.

One lesson driven home again and again is the importance of journalists to get out and about—to report by being there. Again, it’s a key point I try to make with my students, with mixed results. Don’t email all your sources or consult Google to retread information—the best journalism is what you find in the world, and you have to be out there to encounter it. That’s always true of photographers, but is a lesson for the rest of the tribe, too.

And, as Martin noted, news photographers are always looking for “the human impact.” Another journalism 101—don’t just show “the thing.” Show what the thing means to people—and that is very true of photography. I often make images of nature—because I’m a journalism professor, not a journalist—but I have a pretty good reputation as an event image maker at MMU, and I always think what I try to do is capture what something means by capturing the emotions of the people.

Things can be important too, and Martin made the point while showing an image without a person in it, so not every news pictures requires a person in it—but people are usually key.

Later in August, power is finally back on. Butterflies, birds, deer--wildlife had been scarce since the storm, but critters are starting to reappear. Here, an angry squirrel on the felled giant ash tree in front of my house seems to hold me accountable for the disruptions to its life.

One question posed was whether the news photographers were invading people’s privacy at vulnerable moments. They all described asking for consent—and for tying to make images in a respectful way that does not interfere with the moment.

And that gets to anther point. People who suffer through an experience like the derecho can be vulnerable—but what they least want is to be ignored. Journalists—photojournalists like this panel of four but also writers, videographers, radio reporters, TV reporters, web site journalists—are there to prevent that, to tell the stories that otherwise might be ignored.

It was a bit emotional watching the images float by. Photography has power because it does freeze an instant in time, and the best images capture the emotion of that instant. And those of us who lived through the derecho can’t help but recall the intense feelings of that time as we watched the slide show on Martin’s shared desktop.

It was an interesting night. I’m glad that the Gazette gave us this opportunity to learn more about the stories behind the news images.

The Poetry and Peril of Public Speaking

I flew the flag on the porch today. A patriotic day for old Joes.

Ever since the mob attacked the Capitol, I’ve been full of thoughts. I’ve wanted to blog about many things:

• Reforms we need to our election system. No, I don’t buy into the Trump “steal” lie, but there is plenty to think about. How money corrupts the system. How gerrymandering keeps state governments and the U.S. House unrepresentative. How I actually don’t care for mail voting. It’s not that I worry so much about fraud—although even without it, the fact that so many don’t trust it still causes me to pause—but that I want elections decided, by and large, by a vote on election day. I don’t want voting over weeks—I would rather the campaigns play out to the end.

• The need for new ways to think about the marketplace of ideas. I don’t want to curtail free speech, but the interconnected nature of the internet has created all kinds of odd alternative universes. As Hank Green ruminated in a recent post, the need to appeal to eyeballs online drives us to more extremes. Our walled gardens and echo chambers are getting deadly dangerous, and I want to explore ways to break out of that structure—without killing free speech.

• The tragic need to advocate for reality. Big Lies are winning, in some segments. A huge number of Republicans, despite a lack of evidence and the fact that their main source is a known liar, don’t believe Joe Biden won fairly. Which is rich, considering that Trump’s win was a more bitter pill to swallow—at least Biden also won the popular vote. Trump did win, but only because of odd American electoral quirks in which votes are not counted equally. I don’t dispute that those are the rules of our game—but the rules need to be questioned, and, anyway Joe won both ways, in the popular vote and the Electoral College. Wake up and smell the fraud. The “steal” wasn’t trying to bring Trump down after he lost, it was Trump trying to negate a free and fair election. But we don’t all agree on that. Reality is ephemeral, elusive, subjective and without some anchoring in the real world, you have delusional idiots in horns invading the temple of democracy with murder on their feeble minds. In today’s screen age, rationality needs better PR, and that’s a shame.

But the crush of a busy condensed school term, my own mixed emotional reaction at unfathomable events; in the end I have written none of the planned essays.

As was most of America, I was horrified by the events of Jan. 6. A president whips his basket of deplorables into a frenzy, and they attempt to toss sand into the gears of democracy. They even hunt for Mike Pence, only because the vice president decided, in the end, to do his constitutional duty as he saw it. Think about it—they were ready to hang Mike Pence not because he violated a law, but because he was doing his best to follow it.

Yes, violence was predictable. Yes, I think there are a lot of questions about who helped who and why security was so lax.

So, I’ve been on edge during this final fortnight of darkness. “Democracy dies in darkness” and Trump threw way too much shade.

Then today. Trump climbed aboard the chopper and said some final stupid before jetting off to rudely snub the incoming Joe. And I was in my office working and checked the CNN live feed on my computer when it was almost time.

I caught Kamala Harris taking the oath and could not believe the sense of relief that washed over me. And a few minutes early, just before noon in Washington, John Roberts began to feed Joe Biden the words of the oath.

And with that, Old Joe was President. Praise God, I have survived the Trump presidency, something that lately I had not been so sure of.

Then the little Black lady poet approached the microphone. I thought my heart would burst.

Amanda Gorman: “We will not march back to what was, but move to what shall be: a country that is bruised, but whole; benevolent, but bold; fierce and free. We will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation, because we know our inaction and inertia will be the inheritance of the next generation. Our blunders become their burdens. But one thing is certain, if we merge mercy with might, and might with right, then love becomes our legacy, and change our children’s birthright.”

Joe Biden spoke well, too—words that were articulate, in complete sentences. He didn’t try to scare us with the false bogeyman of “American carnage,” but soberly talked about the great challenges we face.

And now, as it ever was despite what tangerine depots may have said, Journalists are again not our enemies. The media you traduce brought you the sounds and images of today.

On the other hand, our bruised and battered country is not healed. And our media, a vital piece of the democracy built over generations, is in a state of flux.

I feel some hope. Change has come.

Still, we have to look back and try to figure out how a reality TV star captivated enough of the nation to capture high office. The Trump legacy must leave us asking: How did it happen? How did we come so close to descending into fascism? How did democracy almost die in delusion?

Today we saw some examples of soaring rhetoric that can lift our nation. But it comes after four years of crude, cruel, churlish language that was too popular and makes us look diminished. Public speaking is one of the keys to our continued public life, and we both live and die by it.

And how can we keep our freedom and yet ensure that this fragile, flawed form of government, imperfect yet better than any alternative, continues to endure?

The ongoing work must continue. The fight is never over; our liberties we prize and our rights we must maintain. But how? I don't yet know, but I am seeking. And taking some solace in voices like Lady Gaga's:

 

Going for Lie of the Year Two Years Running?

Image of President Trump boarding a plane. When he flies our Jan. 20, good riddance. Image from White House Facebook page.

The phone call. From a man with a history of spectacular phone calls. President Trump called the Secretary of State of Georgia to demand that the election, long since certified and over, be called back.

And he spouted a fire hose of  nonsense—but many craven Republicans in the House and Senate still vow to object to Joe Biden’s win. Odd—new GOP members selected in the same election aren't objecting to their shady wins. If an election is bogus, isn't it bogus up and down the ballot? Meanwhile, Trump calls for a rally in the street.

Well, we have an interesting fortnight plus change of crazy before us, and I just hope it ends without riots or war with Iran. Avoiding either is not a sure bet.

Official White House wanted poster.

 

It is very interesting how the nuttiest corners of right-wing media imagine an election conspiracy, then Trump mirrors and amplifies the message, and suddenly the worst of GOP political opportunists (I’m looking at you, Ted Cruz) say a huge investigation is needed because so many millions do not trust the vote. Which the liar-in-chief has falsely told them is fake.

I’m not shocked that Trump has gone off the deep end. Nobody could drive him crazy when it’s more of a putt. No need to move to Crazy Town when you're already the mayor. But the lack of principle and spine among so many other Republicans is as depressing as the fact that, in the midst of this pathetic spectacle, our loser Prez retains the loyalty of the Trumpers.

Last year, Politifact.com, a fact check site run by the Poynter Institute, named COVID-19 denial as their lie of the year. The Denier-in-Chief was voted out of office, I think partly due to the consequences of that lie, but the orange one refuses to admit he lost.

I know it’s early in 2021, but even in January, the spectacularly fact-challenged call by Trump would seem to make election denial a strong contender for this 2021’s lie of the year.

A potential for a twofer! The same master of BS, Donald Jessica Trump (thank you, Randy Rainbow, you’re a national treasure) could win it again! Lie of the year for two years in a row—they’ll have to find a special piece of stone for that Pinocchio nose when they add him to Rushmore. Tired of all the winning yet?