Easter Bunnies have a way of making the Joe Biden White House look bad.
In 2022, it was the president himself who was on the receiving end of an embarrassing apparent surprise at the White House Easter Egg Roll, being herded by a character dressed in a large rabbit suit.
On Monday, a character dressed in a bunny costume was trotted out briefly at the beginning of the White House press briefing in the place at the podium normally occupied by press secretary Karin Jean-Pierre. The comparison wasn’t flattering to KJP — or the White House press corps.
Check it out here:
The Easter Bunny makes an appearance in the White House briefing room. pic.twitter.com/xHOQKX3yfP
— CSPAN (@cspan) April 1, 2024
For Americans who might be wondering how their tax money is being spent, it’s not exactly reassuring to see the image of an adult-sized rabbit standing in front of the cameras where the White House spokeswoman should be.
For Americans who might be wondering if the vaunted free press in the nation’s capital is doing its job of vigilantly watching the leaders of the Republic, the middle-school-sounding “awww …” from reporters that greeted the rabbit’s appearance isn’t comforting.
And for Americans who have become used to the torrent of partisan distortion, administration doublespeak and outright lies that are the hallmark of Jean-Pierre’s daily brushes with the press, it was a sign that the silent bunny might just have been an improvement.
And the reaction on social media was pretty clearly not what the White House wanted:
Have to wonder how stuff like this plays to Putin and the leaders of Hamas
— Johnny Silverhand / engram (@DeckardBR2019) April 1, 2024
This should help the US be less of a laughing stock
— David Santman (@SantmanDavid) April 1, 2024
I have more trust in that bunny than I do Biden
— Metal Patriot 🇺🇸 (@metal_patriot98) April 1, 2024
White House is celebrating Easter today. Yesterday was Trans Visibility Day…
— Chuck Luke (@Chazdogs53) April 1, 2024
The Easter Bunny act has been pretty much a mainstay of the Biden White House, starting with its first Easter, when then-White House press secretary Jen Psaki allowed a Leporidae family visit near the end of the news conference on the Monday of the White House Egg Roll.
As The Hill reported at the time, with apparent approval, White House correspondents used the moment as an opportunity to mock Sean Spicer, former President Donald Trump’s first press secretary.
Last year, it led to some good-natured ribbing by KJP for then-Pentagon press secretary John Kirby, as Mediaite reported at the time. (Or maybe not so good-natured, since Kirby is now angling for Jean-Pierre’s job, according to an Axios report in January.)
But this is an election year, when Biden is seeking a second term against a dismal economy, often dismal polls, and the overall sense of a dismal presidency.
Did you find this unnecessary?
Having a character in a rabbit suit pantomiming non-answers at the White House podium is surrealistically close to Karine Jean-Pierre’s loquacious non-answers on any given day.
Considering that the Biden White House is afforded disgracefully gentle treatment by the capital press corps, it’s unlikely that a rabbit suit at the podium would hurt the general quality of the questioning.
Given the amount of time the bunny’s appearance took, and the fact that its inanely waving hands were at least as responsive as any of Jean-Pierre binder-fed answers to a legitimate question from Fox News’ Peter Doocey about, say, the president’s relative sanity, it didn’t make the rabbit actor look all that bad.
All in all, it didn’t make Jean-Pierre — or the majority of the press corps — look good, at all.
