Jim Geraghty of National Review Online highlights one of the new president’s go-to tactics for deflecting criticism.
In his recent interview with George Stephanopoulos — you know, that guy who worked as a top communications aide in the Clinton White House when President Biden was a senator — Biden rejected the notion that his rhetoric or policy shifts prompted the current surge of migrants heading toward the U.S.-Mexico border.
“The idea that Joe Biden said, ‘Come’ — because I heard the other day that they’re coming because they know I’m a nice guy, here’s the deal, they’re not,” he said.
Call it the Malarkey Maneuver: When Joe Biden gets accused of something unsavory, he just emphatically insists it isn’t true and hopes that resolves the issue. “My son did nothing wrong!” “This never happened!” “You’re a damn liar!” “You’re a lying, dog-faced pony soldier!”
I guess that just like Vox and the Migrant Policy Institute, Biden thinks it’s just a coincidence that this migration surge intensified the way it did after he took office — and that it’s just a matter of post-pandemic economic conditions and the hurricanes. …
… Sure, the human smugglers are lying to those they want to exploit. But if the human smugglers had told their victims that Donald Trump had opened the borders and was now welcoming workers from Central America . . . would any of those poor migrants have believed those claims?
When Biden took office and announced that he was pausing deportations for 100 days, that ICE would no longer deport immigrants for crimes such as driving under the influence and assault, and that he would cease border-fencing construction . . . didn’t that promise from the human smugglers seem a little more plausible?
NBC News offers accounts from Customs and Border Patrol agents that contend the Biden administration is now attempting to deal with the overwhelming influx of migrants by just making it harder for the news media to report on it. …
