Wag The Dog: Pritzker and Biden Masters of Diversion
Biden's Ukraine focus; stepping down of Illinois top public health aide show how performative art matters in politics
Tuesday night, at the State of the Union address, President Biden spoke at length about the war in Ukraine. He should have. The Russian invasion last week was stunning in its boldness and global impact (how many of us knew how reliant the United States and so many other countries are on Russian oil?) The videos and images of refugees are viscerally disturbing.
But let’s get down to brass tax. Much of Biden’s Ukraine devotion has to do with polling numbers.
It’s always politics, Jack.
A Reuters poll showed 43% of Americans approve of how Biden is handling circumstances in Ukraine (up nine points from the previous week). When the president asked the audience to stand and send an “unmistakable signal to Ukraine and to the world” the crowd stood and cheered. Television cutaways showed many in the audience wearing blue and yellow-colored clothing, the colors of the Ukrainian flag.
It was a feel-good moment and while legitimate in its signal of solidarity towards Ukraine, the visuals and content contained a diversionary intent.
That intent – to distract Americans from the problems on our homeland. The soaring gas prices, the rising inflation and how Biden’s answer to these issues is to blame selfish business owners and to spend more.
It was a “wag the dog” performance.
Several hours earlier Tuesday, in Chicago, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker held his own Magical Mystery Tour presentation at Rush Medical Center.
After taking a stroll down memory lane, bragging about how Illinois was one of the first states to issue a stay-at-home order two years ago when COVID-19 first hit (yes, he actually gloated about forcing citizens into their houses in March 2020) he announced an administrative waiver wire move.
Cut from the public health roster, Dr. Ngozi Ezike.
Ezike, head of the Illinois Department of Public Health, became Dr. Gloom-in-the-flesh throughout Covid, and in the absence of actual data, turned daily press conferences into a Tales From The Crypt storytelling session.
One memorable presser found Ezike “advising” Illinoisans to wear masks while inside their house around family members.
“I wear a mask inside my own house around my children,” she said. "Protecting our loved ones is the most responsible thing we can do.”
I couldn’t find the remote fast enough after that brainless “recommendation.” And this person was in charge of public health decision-making?
For one day Tuesday, Rush Medical Center may as well have been renamed “Rush Center for the Performing Arts” because the weepy press conference – and the naming of “Dr. Ngozi Ezike Day” – was a clinic in performative art.
And of shrewd diversionary tactics.
As the weather breaks in the Midwest and we can all spend more time outdoors, we will see political campaigns kick into high gear.
The Republican primary for governor in Illinois is four months away. Last Friday, the Illinois Supreme Court handed candidates truck loads of red meat when the court shot down Pritzker’s reckless use of executive order.
Whomever emerges as the challenger to the governor, they can spend four months before November saying Pritzker is unfit to govern. How he unlawfully used his executive seat, and administrative agencies (like IDPH) to proxy autocratic legislative commands.
Who happened to be Pritzker’s top public health capo? Ezike. Who was the one providing agency affirmation for his directives? Ezike.
“I’ve always promised to listen to the experts,” Pritzker said Tuesday.
One of those experts – Ezike – is now gone. Don’t think for a second the timing is coincidental.
When the ISC refused to hear Pritzker’s last gasp appeal, Ezike was as good as gone. She went from “heroic public health servant” to political liability.
The governor’s re-election campaign did not want to face scrutiny about Ezike’s role in what a Sangamon County judge said was a “type of evil,” when ruling on public health mitigations approved by Ezike.
On the payroll, she’d become a distraction for Pritzker on the campaign trail. Off the books and in the private sector, Pritzker can laud Ezike’s service to the citizens of Illinois and how her actions “kept Illinoisans safe throughout the deadly pandemic.”
He may have let Ezike go, but don’t think Pritzker is about cut bait from the “pandemic.”
Tuesday, he shamelessly talked about a “global movement of solidarity and compassion, the sounds of pots and pans clanging the world over, incomparable loss, trauma and frustration…” before taking a shot at the “minority of voices who have used this emergency to naysay, to bicker, to polarize and to divide.”
Come on, JB. Even President Biden is starting to push Covid into the rearview mirror.
Early Wednesday, his administration revealed a new preparedness plan which he teased at Tuesday’s address. The tenor of his speech and the new directive presents more of an endemic approach to Covid moving forward. The polling (tanking approval numbers) insists Biden does so.
But Pritzker won’t change his tenor until it’s politically prudent. So far, with a sizable lead over all oppositional candidates, he’ll stay on message. And he won’t have his key #mitigations4ever steward – Ezike – around to remind voters of his legal defeats.
The 1997 movie, “Wag the Dog,” is a satire about what happens when truth is manipulated and corrupted by ambition and the dubious motives of those in power.
In the film, a White House sex scandal weeks before election day leads to secret meetings between presidential aides and public relations spin doctors. In one of those strategy meetings a PR expert played by Robert De Niro instructs an aide on how to deflect immediate press blowback:
“To change the story, change the lead.”
We saw two Democratic politicians follow that advice masterfully this week.
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I could feel the evil happening in real-time when this all started! So glad the judge called it what it was (in so many ways). Thanks for the write-up Jon