Curtis Houck spent his summary of the Aug. 10 White House press briefing so enraged that non-right-wing reporters asked inconvenient questions about a Republican governor that he almost forgot to mention his man-crush, Peter Doocy:
Yet again, reminding viewers that they’re scared to death of Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL), White House reporters and the Biden administration played off each other during Tuesday’s press briefing and presidential press conference to lob barbs at DeSantis for refusing to bring back mask mandates and/or threaten to bring back Covid restrictions from 2020.
He did, however, express joy that CBS reporter Ed O’Keefe “laid a trap for Biden by asking him to assess” resigned New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s “performance on policy,” then touting how other reporters “realized the insanity of this endorsement amid the claims he sexually assaulted and harassed at least 11 women.” Never mind, of course, that Houck and his MRC co-workers will defend to their dying day Donald Trump’s performance in office, demanding you ignore his paying hush money to a porn star, the 20-plus women who have accused him of sexual harassment, the pandemic, and the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
Houck waited until the final paragraph to mention in passing “questions from Fox’s Peter Doocy on inflation and immigration.” But don’t worry — Houck made up for it the next day:
For the Hump Day edition of the White House press briefing, Fox’s Peter Doocy grilled Press Secretary Jen Psaki on whether then-candidate Joe Biden and his campaign created vaccine hesitancy because of their efforts in 2020 to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the coronavirus vaccines since they were developed during the Trump administration.
[…]Doocy started off easy by asking Psaki about something Biden was asked a day earlier about when he plans to appoint a permanent FDA commissioner. But the small talk went out the window when he fired off this hardball about how Biden said during the campaign that Americans shouldn’t “trust Donald Trump.”
Of course, Psaki replied that Biden and company had always been on board with the vaccines because approval came from government health experts (ignoring the fact that now-Vice President Kamala Harris directly questioned their efficacy)[.]
Houck offered no evidence that Harris ever “questioned their efficacy.” The MRC has repeatedly and falsely attacked Harris over this by taking her remarks out of context. Houck’s astonishment that Doocy asked that question — as suggested by “How About THAT” his headline — is manufactured, since it’s not exactly a surprise that Doocy, a biased right-wing reporter, would inevitably push this biased right-wing talking point.
Psaki got a zinger back at Doocy that Houck downplayed because showing Doocy’s screw-ups doesn’t serve his agenda. Houck complained in passing that “Psaki dismissed Doocy’s line of questioning by citing Trump’s bleach comments,” the exchange was much more withering; as Mediaite documented — and Houck refused to quote in his item, relegating it instead to a transcript attachment — Paski told Doocy, “I would note that at the time, just for context, the former president was also suggesting people inject versions of poison into their veins to cure Covid. So I think that’s a relevant point.”
The #PsakiBomb ownage is total, and it exposes Doocy as the biased right-wing reporter he is — which is why Houck didn’t want to call more attention to it than he had to.