On Fox News Sunday, panelist Juan Williams wrongly claimed the panel was unanimous: "You have total agreement that, in fact, Joe Biden is a centrist. He's a moderate. He was never a Trojan horse for the far left or a socialist."
Conservative Ben Domenech said nothing like that. He said "a lot of these choices is that they are very much people who are close to Biden personally and to his team and that they are kind of checking identity politics boxes as opposed to ideology boxes when it comes to pleasing the progressives on Capitol Hill."
The progressives were pleased by the diversity, and there wasn't as much fuss about their ideology.
Fox host Chris Wallace cited a lot of criticism from the radicals like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. USA Today reporter Susan Page gave the usual liberal-media answer: "Biden beat Bernie Sanders for the nomination with a centrist message. He then won the White House with a centrist message. So I think we should not be surprised if -- that he -- these appointments have a sort of centrist characteristic."
Page claimed "I kind of agree with Ben that they're remarkably groundbreaking in terms of their diversity of race and ethnicity and gender, but they are not groundbreaking in terms of ideology." This completely ignores the radicalism of people like abortion-boosting Xavier Becerra. This is the same media that told us Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a "moderate" when Bill Clinton nominated her to the Supreme Court. And it's just as false. Biden made peace with Bernie Sanders by agreeing to a "unity" platform full of leftist ideas.
Then came Williams.
WALLACE: You know, Juan, I keep thinking back to the campaign, and when President Trump kept talking about the fact that Joe Biden was going to be a tool of the left, or to tool of various other interests. What strikes me about the group that we've seen here is, yes, Biden is willing to listen to all the various interest groups in his party, both political groups and civil rights groups and, you know, various other groups. But, in the end, he is basically doing what he wants to do. And, yes, he's certainly, and I -- I agree with -- with Ben and Susan in terms of identity politics, there's a real diversity. But it's pretty -- a group with whom, on an ideological front, a policy front, he seems pretty comfortable.
WILLIAMS: Chris, I think you should go to the racetrack today because you've got a trifecta on the panel here. You have total agreement that, in fact, Joe Biden is a centrist. He's a moderate. He was never a Trojan horse for the far left or a socialist.
Wallace didn't say Biden was centrist, he merely said he seems "comfortable" with a bunch of Team Obama veterans. Does anyone recall Obama being a "centrist"?
This is the same elusive logic that came on the front page of the Sunday New York Times. The headline on the top left was "On Philosophy, Biden Cabinet Leans Centrist." But the paper claimed the picks were "Washington veterans" in the "Democratic Party's mainstream." That does NOT say "centrist."
