Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Curtis Houck finished out 2021 with increasingly sporadic renditions of the Jen Psaki-bashing, Peter Doocy-fluffing antics he has been paid to do all year. After nearly a week's break, Houck returned for the Dec. 13 briefing with more of the same gushing over Doocy for pushing right-wing narratives:
On Monday’s abbreviated edition of The Psaki Show, Fox’s Peter Doocy came prepared (as always) with tough questions many of his colleagues refuse to ask, focusing this day on issues pertaining to the cost of the Biden administration’s Build Back Better (BBB) boondoggle, whether Vice President Harris is still in charge of combatting illegal immigration, and the role of liberal prosecutors contributing to rising crime.
Doocy led with BBB and whether President Biden would support the bill’s host of new social programs being “made permanent” despite the fact that, as per a new score from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in which “they assume that social programs are going to be made permanent and, in that case, it would add almost $3 trillion.”
Psaki roundly dismissed it, repeatedly calling it “a fake CBO score” since it’s “not based on the actual bill” led by an ask of the CBO by Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) (whom Psaki first referred to as a woman in a Freudian slip).
[...]
Closing with the terrifying issue of rising crime and smash-and-grab robberies, Doocy posed to Psaki a basic question: “Do you think it’s possible that big cities are dealing with these smash and grab robberies right now, an increase in criminal activity because some prosecutors are too soft on crime?”
Psaki said she wouldn’t “attribute the reasoning from here,” but she did the opposite as, before talking about the White House’s focus on “ensuring local police departments and cops have the funding they need,” she blamed the coronavirus as “we have seen an increase of crime over the course of the pandemic.”
Doocy followed up by blowing holes in this argument: “[W]hat good does it do if you’re going to give police departments extra money if they arrest bad guys and they bring them to jail and then they’re not prosecuted. They’re just right back out on the streets.”
After she doubled down on her previous answer, Doocy questioned whether Biden believes it’s “good governing” for those running New York City to have cases like “pickpocket[er] with more than 30 arrests” and the suspect in the burning of the $500,000 Fox Christmas tree both being allowed “back out on the streets.”
Psaki wanted nothing to do with this, stating she already had “spoke to the President’s concerns about retail theft.”
The Doocy-gasms continued for Houck for the Dec. 14 briefing:
Hours before Press Secretary Jen Psaki’s lame attempt at humor, Tuesday’s White House press briefing similarly featured moments of stupidity as liberal journalists hit Psaki from the left on gun control, January 6, cutting back holiday parties due to Covid, and, worst of all, the dark red voting tendencies of Kentuckians who lost their homes in violent tornadoes. However, it wasn’t all lost as Fox’s Peter Doocy brought the heat on Afghanistan and crime.
Doocy didn’t waste time in cutting to the chase after being called on: “Why is it that there are still Americans stranded in Afghanistan?”
Psaki insisted the U.S. has kept its promise to “help” any American “get out” seeing as how, since the country’s collapse, “we've directly assisted 479 American citizens” and “450 lawful permanent residents and SIV holders and SIV applicants” in “depart[ing] Afghanistan.”
Doocy pushed back, repeatedly noting that “479 left behind is a lot higher than the 100 to 200 that President Biden was talking about at the end of August.”
[...]
With his remaining time, Doocy went back to what she’s said about rising crime having come during “the pandemic” via “a range of reasons.” “Would you consider one of the reasons in the range prosecutors who are cutting people who are accused of many criminal offenses loose too quickly,” he asked.
Psaki demurred, arguing she wasn’t going to analyze the reasoning other than tie it to the pandemic.
Doocy’s final line of questioning stemmed from “reports that these smash and grab robberies are being organized on social media platforms” and whether “the administration is doing anything about that.”
After praising other right-wing reporters, Houck whined that a non-right-winger asked a question: "At the other end of the spectrum of insightfulness, Bloomberg’s Nancy Cook inquired about any plans for the White House “to commemorate January 6” (because everything has to be about January 6 for the media)."
Houck didn't check in again until the Dec. 23 briefing, which he started by insisting that his repeated references to "The Psaki Show" during the year weren't derogatory (after all, we don't recall him dismissing any of Kayleigh McEnany's press briefings as a "show" despite having shown much more affection for her than he has ever demonstrated toward Psaki):
Affectionately referred to here as The Psaki Show, Thursday featured 2021’s final White House press briefing and it served as solid encapsulation of the year as Fox’s Peter Doocy tangled with Press Secretary Jen Psaki on a variety of issues (with Covid and crime on Thursday’s docket) mixed in with other reporter questions that ranged from solid to inoffensive to boring to hitting from the left.
Doocy began by wishing Psaki a “Merry Christmas” and then got right to the questions: “So, why is the President saying about this new variant, ‘nobody saw it coming, nobody in the world’ if that's not true?”
Instead of trying to clean up what Biden said, Psaki largely doubled down by saying “how transmissible they would be,” or “what they would look like,” so they’ve spent this year “preparing for a range of contingencies.”
Drilling down on the questionable nature of that last part, Doocy wanted to know “why” has the administration “propos[ed] 500 million tests next month if you haven't even signed a contract to buy the tests.”
Psaki went on for a little while and insisted there’s “no concern about the contract being finalized” since “[w]e just announced” the ramp-up “two days ago,” so Doocy made sure to follow-up:
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Before calling it a year on his end, Doocy asked two questions about crime in light of Congresswoman Mary Gay Scanlon (D-PA) being carjacked on Wednesday in south Philadelphia[.]
And with that, Houck also called it a year as well on his biased hackery. He did, however, serve up one last bit of obsequiousness in a Dec. 30 post recounting "Peter’s Top Briefing Room Tangles With Jen Psaki in 2021." That branding, though, clashes with his insistence that Doocy was "respectfully challenging an administration," unlike what enemy of the MRC Jim Acosta purportedly did during the Trump years. Houck then praised other right-wing reporters for asking "cordial yet probing questions" while refusing to admit their right-wing bias.
Needless to say, Houck didn't mention that time he stealth-edited one of his briefing articles to cover up the fact that Doocy pushed a false story at Psaki.
