Unsurprisingly, the Media Research Center is part of the right-wing anti-mask movement because personal inconveniences are more important than working toward the common good of slowing the spread of COVID. Curtis Houck embodied that in yet another Jen Psaki trash-fest regarding her July 27 White House press briefing:
When there’s a White House press briefing in which the press corps doesn’t appear friendly with the Biden administration, you know it was a tough day at the office. Tuesday’s briefing was one of those rare days as Fox’s Peter Doocy was joined by over a half dozen colleagues in asking tough questions Press Secretary Jen Psaki refused to answer about the return of masks, even for vaccinated Americans.
The Associated Press’s Alexandra Jaffe didn’t wait for Doocy, leading off the Q&A by wondering “how will the White House get Americans to start wearing masks when they’ve gone for more than two months without them,” and if it was a mistake to say July 4 all but marked our “independence” from the virus.
After Psaki insisted we must respect CDC scientists and remember that we’re living in unprecedented times, Jaffe followed up by questioning whether the back-and-forth was “wise…considering [this] could make it tougher for Americans to take” the pandemic “seriously.”
Psaki’s answer undermined the edict to mask up, insisting that everyone should get vaccinated to be “protected from serious illness or hospitalization” while the government does what’s best “to protect more people and save more lives.”
As Mediaite’s Tommy Christopher noted, this was little more than a gotcha session over masks — but since this feeds into right-wing narratives, Houck clearly approved.
Houck was able to resume his Peter Doocy man-crushing for the July 29 briefing:
When it seemed like only a few of his colleagues were still outraged at the Biden administration’s decision to bring back indoor masking for much of the country (compared to with White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and President Biden over the regime’s inconsistent (and arguably misleading) messaging masks.
And in the case of the exchange with President, Doocy’s fact-checking and questioning brought out the angry Biden (as opposed to the forgetful or whispering Biden).
Houck accused Jean-Pierre — whom he had previously denigrated as an apparent diversity hire — of offering “word salad,” despite his never objecting when his beloved Kayleigh McEnany did so. He then gushed over Doocy’s ambushing Biden on the mask issue:
Fast-forward to the press conference and Doocy repeatedly tried to shout a question to Biden, but unsurprisingly, he wasn’t interested.
But as Biden walked away, Doocy caught his attention: “Mr. President you said if you were fully vaccinated, you would no longer need to wear a mask?”
Doocy tried to say more, but Biden angrily cut him off with this false claim: “No, I didn’t say that.”
Doocy hit back with, “you did,” but Biden realized mid-thought he had been caught: “I said if fully vaccinated in an area where you do not have — well, let me clarify that.”
This gave Doocy an opening: “In May, you made it sound like a vaccine was the ticket to losing masks forever.”
The President replied that his statement was “true at the time” as he believed the vaccination rates would be higher than they are now and he didn’t know about the Delta variant.
As Christopher also pointed out — but Houck didn’t — this exchange came after Biden praised Fox News for getting on board the pro-vaccination bandwagon, and that Biden’s statements was not as false as Houck and Doocy want you to think it was, because “the whole reason the mask guidance has changed is that people aren’t getting vaccinated.”
For thet July 30 briefing, Houck decided that because the non-right-wing media had come to understand that the Delta variant has changed the mask game, it was some kind of “liberal media” plot:
After a week that consisted of vehement pushback against the Biden administration’s new mask edict and threats of bringing back crippling Covid restrictions, the liberal media decided on Friday to fall in line during the White House press briefing with only Fox News’s Peter Doocy remaining skeptical about this sudden change.
And on the misinformation front, numerous reporters parroted Biden administration line of using a Covid outbreak earlier this month in Provincetown, Massachusetts to justify masking and other mitigation measures when, in reality, that highly debaucherous event isn’t representative of the American populace.
This is a homophobic smear; Houck is trying to blame the outbreak on filthy LGBT people who were allegedly in Provincetown for a “bear week” event. In fact, the study covered many tourists in Provincetown over a longer period than that particular event, and it turned out that three-fourths of those who tested postive for COVID were fully vaccinated — meaning that the people in Provincetown are much more “representative of the American populace” than Houck would like to admit. Nevertheless, Houck reveled in pushing the homophobic smears:
For the unaccustomed, “bears” could be defined as larger, masculine gay men with plenty of hair. And “Bear Week” in the Bay State has a reputation of involving plenty of poor life choices, including plenty of making out and gay sex.
But sure, let’s dictate public health policy off of that in the same way we’d make changes based on the inside of a frat on a Saturday night or hotel rooms during spring break in Florida.
Yes, Houck really thinks failure to be heterosexual is a “poor life choice.”