There is an interesting subgenre of Regime Media accommodation of Democrats which consists of not pressing Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer (D) too hard on anything that might hurt the Democrat ticket in November in Arab-dominant portions of Michigan.
Watch as Whitmer dances around CNN’s Jake Tapper’s attempts to get her to condemn U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Squad) over her remarks accusing Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel of injecting (((biases))) into “the office she runs”:
CNN STATE OF THE UNION
9/22/24
9:06 AM
JAKE TAPPER: Your state's attorney general, Dana Nessel, charged almost a dozen individuals from the University of Michigan over the anti-Israel protests. Among the charges: attempted ethnic intimidation, assaulting or obstructing a police officer, and on and on. These are pro-Palestinian protesters who- who were being punished and prosecuted. Michigan Democratic Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, who is Palestinian- she called the charges from Nessel, who is Jewish “shameful” and Tlaib said, quote: “it seems that the Attorney General decided if the issue was Palestine, she was going to treat it differently. And that alone speaks volumes about possible biases within the agency she runs”, unquote. Nessel responded by saying, quote: ‘Rashida Tlaib should not use my religion to imply I cannot perform my job fairly as attorney general, it's anti-semitic and wrong”, unquote. Do you think that Tlaib’s suggestion that Nessel's office is biased was anti-semitic?
GRETCHEN WHITMER: Listen, Jake, you know what? All I can say is that I know that our Jewish community is in pain, as is our Palestinian and Muslim and Arab communities in Michigan. I know that seeing the, you know, incredible toll that this war has taken on both communities has been really, really challenging and difficult. And my heartbreaks for so many. But as Governor, my job is to make sure that both these communities are protected and respected under the law in Michigan. And that's exactly what I'm going to stay focused on.
TAPPER: But do you think Attorney General Nessel is not doing her job? Because Congresswoman Tlaib is suggesting that she shouldn't be prosecuting these individuals that Nessel says broke the law, and that she's only doing it but because she's Jewish and the protesters are not. That's quite- quite an accusation. Do you think it's true?
WHITMER: Like I said, Jake, I'm not going to get in the middle of this argument that they're having. I can just say this. You know, we do want to make sure that students are safe on our campuses and we recognize that every person has the right to make their statement about how they feel about an issue, a right to speak out. And I'm going to use every- every lever of mine to ensure that both are true.
The quote of Tlaib cited by Tapper to Whitmer was partial, but within context. Per the Detroit Metro Times:
“We’ve had the right to dissent, the right to protest,” Tlaib says. “We’ve done it for climate, the immigrant rights movement, for Black lives, and even around issues of injustice among water shutoffs. But it seems that the attorney general decided if the issue was Palestine, she was going to treat it differently, and that alone speaks volumes about possible biases within the agency she runs.”
“Possible biases” can be plainly seen to be doing the anti-semitic heavy lifting here. But Whitmer, who is known to take quick stances on issues such as abortion, demurred and danced here- treating the controversy between two high-profile elected officials as though she were refusing to take sides in a marital dispute among friends.
This isn’t the first time that Whitmer loses her tongue so as not to alienate constituencies in such places as Detroit, Dearborn, and Hamtramck, which turned out en masse to vote “Uncommitted” in the Michigan Democratic primary, and appear to remain uncommitted in the general election. Recall that Whitmer refused to say whether what is happening in Gaza (as a result of Hamas’s barbaric October 7th attack against Israel) is a “genocide”.
Then, as now, Whitmer engaged in nonresponsive word salads. Then, as now, Whitmer is given a couple of light passes and rewarded for her filibustering by her questioners. In Welker’s case, she moved on to a question on Trump’s New York business record trial- a question far likelier to elicit a response. In Tapper’s case today, he ended the interview after Whitmer ran the clock out on him.
In both cases, viewers expecting to hear responses to thoughtful questions were instead treated to a big helping of Duck á la Gretch.
