Everyone should remember upfront before the Republican primaries really begin that Politico is a Democrat outlet. Look no further than Michael Kruse's nasty piece on "The Casey DeSantis Problem." Just read this and think of Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama, and know how much liberals would freak out:
She is and always has been by far his most important adviser, they say, because she is hesitant to cede that space to nearly anybody else. The DeSantis inner circle is too small and remains so, they say, not only because he constitutionally doesn’t trust people but because she doesn’t either.
Especially forthright are the people who are granted anonymity on account of their fear of retribution given their power — not just his but hers. “She’s the power behind the throne,” a Republican lobbyist told me. “The tip of the spear,” said a Republican consultant.
This is one of the most irresponsible uses of anonymous sources, just to make catty comments with no idea of the vicious anonymous source's motivations. Then Kruse turned to Trump stone-throwers:
“Have you ever noticed,” Roger Stone, the notorious political mischief-maker who is both a DeSantis antagonist and a many-decades-long Trump loyalist, remarked in a Telegram post last fall, “how much Ron DeSantis’ wife Casey is like Lady Macbeth?” — an agent, in other words, of her husband’s undoing.
As reporters like Fox's Joseph Wulfsohn reminded, just last year Politico derided "The return of the Lady Macbeth trope" during the 2022 midterms when it was used against First Lady Jill Biden, Hillary Clinton, and Gisele Fetterman.
"While the attacks on Joe Biden and John Fetterman’s wives might have mostly been intended as attacks on the male candidates, the end result is a reinforcement of traditional gender roles that make any ambitious woman suspect. If Gisele Fetterman or Jill Biden ever run for office, they can expect to see the same trope come back to target them, not their husbands. Just look at Hillary Clinton," Politico Magazine senior editor Katelyn Fossett wrote.
So it's terrible when used on Democrat wives, but fair game with Republican wives. That's our liberal Democrat media, alright. Kruse continued:
The more complicated but also more instructive reality is that she is neither the fawning caricature she’s made out to be in conservative and even at times mainstream media nor a Shakespearean villain....She can ameliorate some of the effects of his idiosyncrasies. She can also accentuate, even exacerbate, his hubris, and his paranoia, and his vaulting ambition — because those are all traits that they share. He wouldn’t be where he is without her. He might not get to where he wants to go because of her.
Here again come the vicious anonymous sources:
“He’s a leader who makes political decisions with the assistance of his wife, who was elected by nobody, who’s blindly ambitious,” said a former DeSantis administration staffer. “And she sees ghosts in every corner.”
“She’s more paranoid than he is,” said a second staffer.
“He’s a vindictive motherfucker. She’s twice that,” said a higher-up on one of his campaigns. “She’s the scorekeeper.”
Former Rep. David Jolly -- now an MSNBC analyst -- alleged Mrs. DeSantis threatened his mother over a picture they took.
He called her in our conversation an ice queen. “Both ice and queen,” he said, “are doing the work there.”
Conservatives slammed the piece on Twitter. "A disgusting hit piece on Casey DeSantis, who my family and I know well and is a dear friend," Mark Levin tweeted. "Media lowlifes just cannot control themselves. Michelle Obama, Jill Biden treated like saints....They pulled the same crap on Nancy Reagan, by the way. The media hate smart, strong, professional Republican women who are also loving mothers and wives, and who support their husbands."
