An anonymous senior White House official is complaining about a “b*tchy tone” in a story about President Trump‘s senior adviser/son-in-law Jared Kushner.
Washington Post congressional reporter Rachel Bade tweeted Wednesday morning, “Now THIS is a first: A senior administration official complains that our story abt GOP sens privately bashing Kushner’s immigration performance has ‘kind of a bitchy tone.’ Hmm.”
Washington publicist and country music newsletter editor Kurt Bardella called “chickenshit” on the White House using anonymity to get its message out.
“New rule: if you’re gonna complain about the tone of a story — put your name on it,” he wrote on Twitter. “Otherwise, you’re no different than a random chicken-sh*t person from a chat-room hiding behind a title or a screen-name.”
Now let’s take a look at the story double bylined by Bade and Mike DeBonis. Is it really “bitchy?” The piece involves a meeting with Kushner and GOP senators.
A first sign of possible bitchiness arises in the fourth graph. But it seems Trump aide Stephen Miller is the bitchy one, not the authors of the story:
But privately, Republican officials said Kushner did not have clear answers to some questions from the friendly audience, prompting Trump’s other senior adviser, Stephen Miller, to interrupt at times and take over the conversation.
At this point, a “senior Trump administration official” disputes what allegedly happened above:
A senior Trump administration official familiar with the meeting disputed that characterization, saying that Kushner, Miller and senior economic adviser Kevin Hassett jointly presented the plan as a team. “This is a detailed proposal that we can unify Republicans around,” the official said. “That gives us a much stronger position to then discuss other things.”
This graph slamming Kushner for being inept could also be construed as “bitchy.”
But I prefer the word “juicy”:
“He’s in his own little world,” said one individual familiar with the discussion in the meeting, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to freely describe the session. “He didn’t give many details about what was in [his plan]. . . . And there were a number of instances where people had to step in and answer questions because he couldn’t.”
Several graphs later, the writers add more from an anonymous source, who said, “Miller interrupted him a lot.”
Perhaps, bitchy. But not necessarily. Washington can be so sensitive.
Caryn Rose, a music writer who has turned up in Vulture and on NPR, offered emotional support to the Washington Post writers.
“As Amy Pohler told the SNL writer’s room when they complained about something a woman was doing, ‘I don’t care if you don’t like it.'”