"Superheroes" and "Nice" Guys: Coverage of Biden's Hawkish Cabinet Picks is
Predictably Lacking
Just as they failed to hold power to account in the run-up to the disastrous
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, corporate media is refusing to ask the hard
questions about Biden's hawkish cabinet picks.
by Alan Macleod
November 25th, 2020
By Alan Macleod
Despite President Trump's insistence that he, in fact, won the election,
President-elect Joe Biden is already filling many of the top positions in
his administration, and corporate media - who Americans rely on to stand up
to state power - are in raptures over his choices.
CNN, for example, has been remarkably deferential to the future president
and his picks, claiming that "it's clear that Biden is choosing people who
are, indisputably, experts in their fields," lauding the appointment of a
number of women and people of color into positions of power. CNBC judged
approvingly that Biden's team is full of "experienced institutionalists" and
"pragmatic realists" (a media codeword generally meaning pro-corporate
individuals).
MSNBC also hailed the "radical normalcy" of the new administration,
highlighting its diversity of gender and race, concluding that, "Biden's new
list is a reminder of how the executive branch is supposed to work in a
functioning administration that values competence." But while there may be
diversity of background, there is little diversity of thought, with all
candidates coming from an elite background and agreeing on the economy, war,
and foreign policy.
Biden's pick for the important Secretary of State role is Anthony Blinken, a
liberal hawk from the Obama administration who pushed for the disastrous war
in Libya, supported Saudi Arabia during the ongoing Yemen crisis, and
defended Israel from criticism over its treatment of Palestine. Yet
virtually none of this has been brought up. Indeed, when Blinken's history
of working for big money corporate clients was raised online, Vox journalist
Aaron Rupar casually brushed it off. "Blinken participated in society. The
horror," he retorted.
After meeting with him, Wall Street Journal columnist Walter Russell Mead
was smitten, declaring his optimism that the hard-working Blinken would
return the U.S. to "Cold War liberal orthodoxies," like confronting China
and Russia. The New York Times gave him the grandiose title of "defender of
global alliances," while CNN claimed that he would "lead [a] mission to
restore [the] U.S. reputation on [the] world stage." Furthermore, it
insisted that he was "an ideal choice" due to his "commitment" to
"international cooperation, refugee issues and humanitarian work," also
taking pains to humanize him as "a father of two toddlers who has his own
band." An entire section of the article was simply headlined "Nice," and was
filled with gushing anecdotes about Blinken's apparent kindly personality.
Another potentially worrying pick for those concerned with human rights and
endless wars is new Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines. In her
previous roles as Deputy Director of the CIA and Deputy National Security
Advisor, she masterminded the Obama administration's worldwide drone war
campaign and oversaw and covered up the CIA's torture campaign, even
supporting Gina Haspel's appointment as director of the agency.
But according to CNN's National Security Analyst Samantha Vinograd, Haines
is "quite literally the nicest person any of us have ever met." In the
famously cutthroat world of intelligence, where nice people rarely even
start, let alone finish first, the idea that the new DNI chief is a paragon
of virtue might prove to be a little hard to swallow, for some. Vinograd, a
former national security state mandarin turned journalist, describes her as
a tireless worker, an accomplished intellectual, focussed, kind and
dedicated. Like with Blinken, CNN was at pains to show her purported human
side, informing us that she is a brown belt in judo, and loves science and
flying planes. Despite the fact that Vinograd served in a high position in
the Obama-Biden administration, and is still a senior advisor at the Biden
Institute, CNN insists that she is in no way affiliated with his campaign.
Thus, the fourth estate, who we rely on to keep the powerful in check, are
describing Biden's administration in such glowing language that many would
be embarrassed to use about their spouses. Not only that, but they
increasingly come from exactly the same class of people that they are meant
to be holding to account.
However, if the written press were overwhelmingly positive, the excitement
over the new administration was turned up to 11 on television. White House
correspondent Yamiche Alcindor - a supposedly neutral and objective
journalist - appeared on MSNBC to tell viewers that Biden's cabinet was like
the Avengers; "here are the superheroes to come and save us all," she
opined, claiming that they would be "good stewards of America's role in this
world," and save the world from Trump and his supposed America-first
isolationism. As the United States is overwhelmingly considered the greatest
threat to peace by the world's population, the message received by the rest
of the planet might be different from that being sent.
Meanwhile, CNN continued to rehabilitate Bush and Trump-era neoconservative
hawk John Bolton, inviting him on the network to tell them how much better
Biden's capable, experienced appointments are than Trump's.
By design, there was very little pushback to the dominant narrative, and
when any appeared, CNN simply cut it off immediately. When progressive New
York congressman Jamaal Bowman began criticizing Rahm Emmanuel - strongly
tipped to become a key member of the new administration - the network simply
cut his feed in mid-sentence, as he was cataloging his history of covering
up the police shooting of Chicago teenager Laquan McDonald and his campaign
to close Chicago schools en masse while mayor. Any deviation from the
official line, it seems, will not be tolerated.
Corporate media have been criticized a great deal over the past four years
over how they handled the Trump administration. While many in the U.S. will
be relieved that the era of Trump is swiftly drawing to a close, it appears
that the press will continue to function in a less than ideal manner. Long
ago, veteran media critic Noam Chomsky claimed that "Any dictator would
admire the uniformity and obedience of the U.S. media." The press'
singularly and relentlessly optimistic tone since Biden's victory suggests
that we might be in for four more years of this.
