A frequent tipster has informed me that on today's episode of "The Five" on Fox News, Bob Beckel actually said that he likes current White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest better than his predecessor James Carney because Earnest "looks better." Far be it from me to render a judgment on relative male handsomeness. But one thing I can say about Earnest is that, at certain times, when he gets a question he doesn't like, he acts like a snotty teenager caught not having his homework ready.
One such incident occurred today. Rather than answer a question about how the Obama administration specifically defined victory over ISIL and what the idea of "destroying" it really means, Earnest ... well. catch the transcript of the first 30 seconds of the video found at (HT Real Clear Politics):
REPORTER (according to the Washington Times Yahoo! News correspondent Olivier Knox), it was :What does victory look like here? You've talked about destroying ISIL, I honestly don't know what that means. What does that mean?
JOSH EARNEST: I didn't bring my Webster's dictionary with me up here. We'll, you know. It's only --
REPORTER: Talking about that -- I understood it when you said --
JOSH EARNEST: I think that's a pretty illustrative phrase to describe the situation that we envision. We've talked about the threat that ISIL poses in the context of foreign fighters.
In the two-minute video above, Earnest never defined "victory" or "destroy," and apparently never did at any other time during the briefing.
By contrast, Ronald Reagan had a definition of victory at the ready back in 1988:
“Here's my strategy on the Cold War: We win, they lose.”
Don't expect Earnest's smart-aleck remark to get much establishment press news coverage.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
