Monday, December 31, 2018

IS SARAH SANDERS WORKING THE REFS SO SHE CAN FIND A JOB?

This article at Raw Story inspired a lot of schadenfreude over the weekend:
Sarah Sanders has ‘struggled’ to find a new job as the White House press office becomes ‘Night of the living dead’: report
Back in June, CBS reported that White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders and her deputy Raj Shah were already planning to leave the administration by the end of the year. Sanders never denied the report. But with January just around the corner, no official announcements of their departures have been made, even as other top officials are shown the door or scramble for the exits of their own accord.

So why are they hanging on? According to Yahoo News, Sanders and Shah are struggling to find work elsewhere.
Here's the problem: The linked Yahoo News story doesn't say that Sanders is struggling to find work. It says the process of finding replacements for Sanders and Shah has been difficult because no one wants their jobs, but there's nothing about Sanders personally struggling.

But a note now appended to the Raw Story report says this:
UPDATE: Since this piece was published, the Yahoo News story it referenced has been changed to remove some of the details cited below. An earlier version of the Yahoo News story can be found here containing the original claims.
That earlier version, published by MSN, says:
According to [a] former member of the transition team, Shah is “still on payroll” at the White House, “but he doesn’t have an office, he doesn’t have a phone.” The source said Sanders and Shah are both actively trying to leave the White House and have struggled to find new jobs.
Did Yahoo edit the story because it lost faith in the source? Or is Sanders working her media connections to kill bad news about herself -- and manufacture good news?

I say "manufacture good news" because this was the lead story at Breitbart late yesterday afternoon:



When it comes to astute and quick-witted individuals within the Trump administration, one name appears in the minds of millions of Americans: Sarah Huckabee Sanders....

After facing immense criticism from several within the media, Sanders has remained a strong voice for the many who admire her courage and unwavering ability to stand up for the administration’s values and agenda.
And this was the top story at FrontPage Magazine for quite a while last week:



The struggle for the future of this country is being fought in the hearts and minds of its citizens. The media is the enemy and Sarah Huckabee Sanders is the warrior who takes them on day after day....

For a year and a half, Sanders has been reporting for duty as the White House Press Secretary. She’s been shouted at, called names, had her appearance demeaned, and was kicked out of a restaurant. Mainstream media White House correspondents, invariably male, try to talk over her and shout her down. But she’s been so effective that there have been calls by the media to boycott her press briefings....

In a hateful environment of utter indecency, she stands for the simple decency of defying the tide of hatred that washes ashore at every gathering in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room. And she does it with admirable dignity and fortitude.

Media portrayals often depict Sanders as a bully, humiliating and embarrassing the media. The opposite is true. Her stolid dignity and unmovable insistence on telling the truth embarrass the media. Every time Sanders takes on the press corps, they come away looking like deranged, egotistical activists throwing a tantrum. The media, which is built on spinning reality, has smeared her, but it’s never been able to change her. That’s why it’s pondering the idea of just giving up and running away from a 5’6 woman.

And that’s why Sarah Huckabee Sanders is FrontPage Magazine’s Warrior Person of the Year.
Wow. What brought this on? In the Trump era, it's rare for right-wing media flacks to gush this way about anyone except him. And while that FrontPage piece implies that Sanders is this year's winner of an annual award, I've found no evidence of any previous FrontPage "Warrior Persons of the Year."

I think Sanders is working the refs, in the mainstream and on the right. I think FrontPage made up a whole new award just to help her find a job.

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