It suuuuuure seems that way, based on this dance between Jen Psaki and Peter Doocy yesterday evening at the White House. Newsbusters editor Curtis Houck captured two key exchanges in the briefing, in fact, and YMMV on which might be the most important.
Chuck Schumer has begun pushing his maximalist (if insufficiently woke) abortion bill in the Senate, which would force all 50 states to allow abortions up to the moment of birth. It has zero chance of passage, but Schumer’s effort makes the point acute for Joe Biden. Does our country’s second Catholic president support the policy that his ally now wants to pass in the Senate — absolutely unrestricted abortion throughout an entire pregnancy?
Psaki won’t get specific. I wonder why (via Legal Insurrection).
Doocy: "So, does the President support abortion up to the min — the moment of birth?"
Psaki: "[He] has spoken about this many times, Peter, & I would refer you to his own comments about abortion & a woman's right to choose, & make decisions about her body w/her doctor" (9/9) pic.twitter.com/IlD3L0ilmS
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) May 5, 2022
Psaki may not want to create a soundbite with a “yes” answer to that question — but the answer is still clearly “yes.” If Biden now supported restrictions on late-term abortions, Psaki would have said so. Instead, Psaki keeps saying that Biden has stated his position “many times,” which is true, but Biden has had many positions on abortion, too. That’s why Doocy wanted to know what Biden’s latest position is on abortion at all stages of pregnancy … and why Psaki doesn’t want to answer it.
LI’s Mary Chastain and Curtis highlight another exchange in the presser, this one perhaps more disturbing in its ramifications. It seems very odd that the White House has no particular criticism for publishing the home addresses of Supreme Court justices:
Doocy: "Is [protesting outside the homes of justices] the kind of thing [Biden] wants to help your side make their point?"
Psaki: "Look, [his] view is that there's a lot of passion, a lot of fear, a lot of sadness…We want people's privacy to be respected." pic.twitter.com/rSQoY4gMSP
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) May 5, 2022
Doocy: "He doesn't care if [abortion activists are] protesting outside the Supreme Court or.. someone's private residence?"
Psaki: "I don't have an official…position on where people protest…We want it…to be peaceful….[They're] protesting is b/c women…are worried[.]" pic.twitter.com/2K5hC5Il9u
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) May 5, 2022
So doxxing public officials is acceptable if “women … are worried”? What if women get worried about the border crisis, or the Disinformation Governance Board, or Hunter Biden’s laptop? If we follow Psaki’s logic, it would be acceptable to expose the home addresses of Alejandro Mayorkas, Nina Jankowicz, and several family members of Biden Inc in order to facilitate *ahem* “peaceful protests.”
Bear in mind too that Psaki and her fellow Democrats are the same people who made protests outside abortion clinics illegal, including on public sidewalks yards away from the doors of those public facilities. The Supreme Court finally intervened in 2014 in the McCullen decision to limit their scope, but those buffer zones and protest still exist in many jurisdictions. If we adopted Psaki’s standard here, then those protests should be able to take place right up to the front of those clinics, as both men and women “worry” about the fate of those unborn children.
I wonder if the Supreme Court would tilt more toward Antonin Scalia’s position in McCullen if this issue came up again after these events and the White House’s shrug at their security. Or, alternately, they might appreciate the position of Massachusetts better … if the justices thought for one hot second that Democrats would apply those same principles to them.
