Lack of Seriousness
A report surfaced yesterday that new U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi saw that there were still portraits of former President Joe Biden, former Vice President Kamala Harris, and former Attorney General Merrick Garland on the walls of a public area at the Department of Justice Building. Since those folks have been out of office for nearly a month, she thought it was time to switch things out, so she personally removed the portraits from the wall, stacked them up for processing, and moved along.
Judging from the reaction from those on the left side of the political aisle, you’d have thought she had committed the worst act against society imaginable. See, they hissed, despite her claims to care about justice, she’s going to be nothing but a Trumper seeking retribution against political enemies.
Seriously? That’s what passes for news out of legacy media? Yes, I’m giving it air time here, but to mock the reporting, not criticize the action.
Sure, the Attorney General could have seen the portraits and asked someone to take them down…but apparently none of the permanent staff had thought enough to do it, so what’s wrong with leading by example and setting a very real tone that different folks are in charge? And the fact that none of that permanent staff had already done it suggests perhaps there’s something to that “deep state” concern. There has already been ample evidence of that in the first month of Trump 2.0.
And if she had asked someone else to do it, that would have been misreported as “ordering” it to be done so workers could salute or bow down to the Trump portrait when entering the building each day…and she’d then be criticized for—wait for it—not just doing it herself.
Portraits of presidents hang in city halls and legislative chambers across the country. When a new president takes office, do you think those of his party enjoy changing out the portraits? Of course they do…regardless of political affiliation. Am I to believe that Democrats didn’t crow about swapping out Trump portraits for Biden portraits four years ago?
The breathless nature of the reporting on this gives me great concern about news reporting these days…that’s nothing new, sadly…just the latest example.
