Biden Bitten by Major Scandal
A minor thing became a major thing or a Major thing became a minor thing.
Jack Hughes, who is smartest about the dumbest stuff, applies himself here to Joe Biden’s first (apologies) Major crisis. The White House press corps turned a man-bites-dog story into a man-bites-dog scandal. Here’s how a minor thing became a major thing or a Major thing became a minor thing.
by Jack Hughes
We learn a lot about new presidential administrations from how they handle the little unexpected things. While staff are still getting “acclimated and accustomed” to the White House, they have to rely more heavily on gut instinct than gained experience – and results can vary. There was a good example of this last week when a minor thing became a major thing or, more accurately, a minor thing became a ‘Major’ scandal.
The story broke early Tuesday morning when “two sources with knowledge” told CNN that Biden’s three-year-old German Shepherd, Major, had been banished from the White House and sent back to Delaware the previous day after biting a member of the presidential security detail. (Let’s pause here to praise CNN’s journalistic integrity for not running with the story until they had a second corroborating source.)
As White House correspondent Kate Bennett originally reported, Major Biden “has been known to display agitated behavior on multiple occasions, including jumping, barking, and ‘charging’ at staff and security, according to the people CNN spoke with about the dog's demeanor at the White House. The older of Biden’s German Shepherds, Champ [Biden]…has slowed down physically due to his advanced age.”
Psaki obviously didn’t want to piss off Major.
There’s a lot to unpack in this. Congressional investigators will no doubt delve into CNN’s troubling discovery that officials had “known” that Major – once celebrated as the first White House rescue animal – exhibited agitated and aggressive behavior on “multiple occasions.” And who were these secret sources that were too frightened to talk about his “demeanor” on the record? Were they silenced by fears of retaliation?
Moreover, what of Champ? According to CNN he was also escorted from the White House. Was he complicit? The two sources said that he was no longer a physical threat “due to his advanced age,” but did he share Major’s radicalized agenda? Were the two Shepherds perhaps angered by Joe Biden’s decision to reverse the Trump Administration’s plans to redeploy U.S. military forces from their native Germany?
The answers to these and other questions were left unanswered. As Bennett reported, the Administration was stonewalling (my word not hers): “CNN reached out to the White House for comment and did not immediately receive a reply.” Were they investigating the multiple leaks? It won’t be hard to find the sources, I can’t imagine that many have the requisite security clearance to access the “[First] dogs’ schedule.”
Within hours White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki tried, but failed, to downplay the Major scandal during an interview with MSNBC: “Champ and Major went to Delaware to stay with family friends.” She then added, uneasily, “Major and Champ are part of the Biden family. They’re members of the family…I just know that they’re beloved members of the family and, of course, of the White House family.”
Psaki obviously didn’t want to piss off Major, and I can understand why. Major was alone with Biden when the-then President-elect suffered a hairline fracture in his lateral and intermediate cuneiform bones last fall. While media outlets reported that Major subsequently issued a formal apology, an investigation by fact-checking site Snopes forced the Biden-Harris transition team to deny the statement’s authenticity.
It was a week before (Joe) Biden himself confirmed the disturbing details, as quoted again in last week’s CNN story: “What happened is I got out of the shower…[Major] dropped a ball in front of me, and for me to grab the ball, and I’m walking through this little alleyway to get to the bedroom and…I’m not joking, running after him and grab his tail. And what happened was he slid on a throw rug and I tripped on the rug.”
(Reading Biden’s explanation, I’m sure some fairly unsettling mental images came to your mind. Mine ‘flashed’ to the classic second season episode of The Simpsons when Marge paints a provocative yet powerful nude portrait of Mr. Burns after walking in on him coming out of the shower: “a frail withered body, perhaps not long for this world, as vulnerable and beautiful as any of God’s creatures.” I digress.)
Needless to say, Psaki’s early morning efforts to dampen the flames only added fuel to the fire. She was asked about it during her White House daily press briefing, where Psaki carefully read out a scripted answer saying Major had been “surprised” and “reacted in a way that resulted in a minor injury to [an] individual which was handled by the White House medical unit…The dogs will return to the White House soon.”
Unsatisfied with pro forma talking points, the White House Press Corps pressured Psaki to clarify if it’d been a Secret Service member who was attacked and “reassure the public that Major Biden will not be euthanized.” Retreating back to her morning messaging, Psaki held firm that “Major Biden is a member of the family so I can assure you that” and then encouraged reporters to speak to the Secret Service directly.
Psaki used two tricks of the press secretary trade. First, the White House doesn’t comment on Secret Service matters. Second, she sidestepped the surefire soundbite (“euthanized”). Evasive? Sure, but she was sufficiently anodyne that later reports could only quote the question. It also had the benefit of being true. While Major isn’t a minor (in dog years), the Attorney General is not seeking the death penalty.
The Attorney General is not seeking the death penalty.
Yet, Psaki did let the mask slip briefly and, in so doing, let us see what she was really thinking behind her carefully crafted responses and repeated references to family. When the second reporter followed up on the Major scandal, Psaki seemed genuinely surprised: “Another dogs question? Okay, go ahead. Sure. Okay.” This is a red flag insofar as one can infer Psaki didn’t feel the issue was as important as the media did.
To be fair, this wasn’t Nixon’s press secretary Ron Ziegler dismissing Watergate as a “third rate burglary.” And yet, the undercurrent is not entirely dissimilar. Someone once said there are two kinds of important things in life – things that are objectively important and things that are important to important people. The White House Press Corps is full of important people, so if ‘it’ is important to them ‘it’ becomes a‘thing.’
In Psaki’s defense, there’s a lot of other ‘things’ going on right now. Plus, the Major scandal put paid to the truism a ‘man bites dog’ story gets more coverage than a ‘dog bites man’ story. It exploded because the story was leaked, and then the White House treated it as much ado about nothing: Major was just a dog being a dog. His trip to Delaware wasn’t punishment but a previously scheduled trip. What’s the big deal?
A cautionary ‘tail’
As POTUS says, here’s the deal: Major may be a member of the Biden family but they’re now the First Family™ and he’s acting like a member of the Corleone family from The Godfather. Major has caused two “minor” injuries since the election so, to paraphrase Don Vito Corleone, you wouldn’t have to be a superstitious man to blame him if some unlucky accident should befall yet another person at the White House.
The story, unlike Major, may now be put to rest – but it lives on as a cautionary ‘tail.’
Jack Hughes is a communications consultant based in Canada. His previous contributions to The Experiment include “Same of Thrones,” “Tippecanoe and Agnew Anew,” “Harris / Shuri 2020,” “What Would Nixon Do?” “Firth and Firthiness,” and “The Ballot of Bill McKay,” among others. His inexplicably extensive writings on Dan Quayle are “The Unusual Suspect,” “The Unusual Suspect II,” “The GOPfather” and “Porqua, CoQau?” His most recent contribution was “The World Wants ‘The West Wing.’” Connect with him on LinkedIn here.
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