White House adds to Joe-mentum

Appearing this morning on MSNBC, White House press secretary Josh Earnest seemed to be doing all he reasonably could to promote a Joe Biden presidential run. Asked by Mika Brzezinski: “Does President Obama want Joe Biden to jump in the race for president and will he support his vice president, Earnest responded:

It certainly seemed to generate some news in the last 24 hours, didn’t it? What the president has long said is that choosing Joe Biden to be the running mate is the smartest decision he ever made in politics. And I think that even given the high expectations that the president had for Vice President Biden, Vice President Biden over the last 6 1/2 years has exceeded them.

He is somebody who is a champion of the middle class. He is somebody who has decades of experience in foreign policy and on a regular basis this administration and this country benefits from the kinds of personal relationship that Joe Biden has built around the world.

Joe Scarborough noted that Earnest must mean that Obama views his selection of Biden as smarter than his selection of Hillary Clinton to be Secretary of State. Earnest did not demur. Instead, he said “that’s clever.”

Pressed as to whether Obama would support a Biden candidacy, Earnest added:

Joe Biden has served the country and this president very well as vice president . . . If he chooses to run, he’ll have a strong case to make, but we’ve got some other Democratic candidates in the race that also have quite a strong case to make.

Thus, after waxing eloquent about Biden’s virtues, President Obama’s press secretary did not even mention Hillary Clinton by name, choosing instead to lump her into the “others” category.

Afterwards, Mark Halperin told the audience not to “underestimate the degree to which people in President Obama’s orbit have taken note of the Clinton foundation and the Hillary e-mail thing and thought, ‘huh?'”

Team Obama has a right to be peeved with Hillary. The “e-mail thing” involves violations of Obama administration policy. The Clinton Foundation scandal casts doubt on the integrity of foreign policy decisions made by the Obama administration.

It may seem odd that an administration as lawless, dishonest, and unethical as Obama’s finds fault with Hillary on matters of integrity. But, of course, the Obama folks don’t view themselves as lawless, dishonest, and unethical. For them, Hillary would make a nice scapegoat.

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