White House spins First Lady Jill Biden’s invite to second-place team
This week, there was yet-another major gaffe by a member of the Biden family. But this time, it was not President Joe Biden, but First Lady Jill Biden.
After the Louisiana State University Tigers women’s basketball team beat the Iowa Hawkeyes in the NCAA title game, the First Lady said she’d love to have both teams go to the White House. Biden said, “I know we’ll have the champions come to the White House; we always do. So, we hope LSU will come.” The First Lady added, “But, you know, I’m going to tell Joe I think Iowa should come too, because they played such a good game.”
But the problem is that the winner usually gets to go to the White House for a day and meet the sitting president in Washington, D.C., not the losing team. Although several teams declined to go to the White House during the Trump administration, it was a time-honored tradition that champions go to the White House for a day.
Apparently, the message did not get to First Lady Jill Biden that the runner-up doesn’t make the trip.
Instantly, her comment was ridiculed by sports fans, who said it was another example of rewarding the team that didn’t win. It was viewed in the same vein as giving a participation trophy to make the losing team not feel terrible for losing.
Star LSU player Angel Reese tweeted her disapproval of Biden’s comment with two simple words: “A JOKE.”
The White House went into top gear to spin Jill Biden’s comment. Her press secretary tweeted that Biden’s comment highlighted her admiration of “how far women have advanced in sports since the passing of Title IX” and that her comments “were intended to applaud the historic game and all women athletes. She looks forward to celebrating the LSU Tigers on their championship win at the White House.”
In a move that ignored Jill Biden’s gaffe, the Twitter account for the president did not mention Iowa at all and said that he looks forward to meeting with the LSU women’s basketball team.
Even more embarrassing is that the mainstream media did not find a sure-fire way to defend the First Lady’s gaffe, as they’re usually inclined to do.
NBC News mentioned how prominent sports figures and others said that Jill Biden’s comments were a racial double-standard because LSU’s team has more black players than Iowa’s roster. ESPN couldn’t do much to defend Jill Biden’s comments either, but whose updated headline seemingly defended her by saying, “Bidens clarify national champ LSU’s White House invitation.”
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Don Irvine
Donald Irvine is the chairman of of Accuracy in Academia (AIA), a non-profit research group reporting on bias in education. Irvine follows his father’s legacy, Reed Irvine, to critically analyze the liberal media’s bias and brings over thirty years of media analysis experience. He has published countless blog posts and articles on media bias, in context of current events, and he has been interviewed by many news media outlets during his professional career. He currently hosts a livestream weekly show on AIA’s Facebook page which discusses current events.
Irvine graduated from the University of Maryland and rose up the ranks to become chairman of Accuracy in Media until his transition to AIA.
He resides in the suburbs around the nation’s capital and is a proud father and grandfather.
