If there’s anything good that came from the scandal surrounding the secrecy of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s hospitalization, it's that it exposed a new level of corruption and incompetence in the Biden administration. Under normal circumstances, you’d expect a president to be regularly communicating with his his secretary of Defense -- and yet, it appears that Biden hadn’t spoken with him for at least four days (but likely much more).
And the White House can’t give us a decent answer as to why.
Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy attempted to get some answers from NSC Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby, and got a bunch of gobbledygook instead.
Doocy began his questioning by asking, point blank, what kind of commander-in-chief Biden is if "at a time when American forces are under fire in the Middle East, he can go days without knowing that his Defense secretary is in a hospital bed."
Naturally, Kirby avoided answering the question, instead launching into a summarization of recent military actions and decision-making processes. Doocy wasn’t accepting that response, because it didn’t actually answer the question.
“Okay. Thank you for all the detail on that,” Doocy replied. "But more broadly, why should we believe anything that this administration tells us about anything ever again?"
And that’s when Kirby transformed into a bumbling fool.
"I think we all recognize, and I think the Pentagon has been very, very honest with themselves about the — the challenge to credibility by what — by what has transpired here and by what — and by how — how hard it was for them to be fully transparent with the American people. I think we all recognize that,” he began. "But we all recognize that this didn’t unfold the way it should have on so many levels — not just the notification process up the chain of command, but the transparency issue. We all recognize that. And I think we all want to make sure we learn from that. I — it’s up to you and your colleagues and it’s up to the American people to determine, you know, how much they’re going to ascribe what happened here to our credibility on every single issue."
Related: The White House Is Trying to Cover up the Real Scandal of Austin’s Absence
In short, the White House can’t explain why Biden wasn’t regularly communicating with his secretary of Defense for nearly a week, if not longer. When you get past the smoke and mirrors, it’s clear they realize this scandal exposed a key deficiency of the Biden administration, and lack of transparency isn’t even the worst of it.
I can still remember when Kirby was brought over from the Pentagon to babysit floundering White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. It was a sad moment for the obvious diversity hire who was even worse at her job than her predecessor Jen Psaki. If anyone at the White House podium could possibly come up with some explanation, no matter how divorced from the truth it was, and sell it to the White House press corps, Kirby would be the guy.
"But if the administration is going to go to such great lengths to keep secrets about the Defense secretary’s health, how can anybody be certain that the administration would not go to the same lengths to keep secret problems with President Biden’s health in the future?" Doocy asked.
The exchange got so bad for Kirby that, believe it or not, Karine Jean-Pierre had to jump in and rescue him.
DOOCY: "If the administration is gonna go to such great lengths to keep secrets about the Defense Secretary's health, how can anybody be certain that the administration would not go to the same lengths to keep secret problems with President Biden's health?"
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) January 9, 2024
KIRBY: "...It's not… pic.twitter.com/Yb6658s59B
I’ve honestly never seen Kirby this rattled before while trying to answer a question. The reason is obvious: there is no excuse for the White House not knowing where Austin was for nearly a week.
