On Wednesday the Baghdad Bob of the White House, played at the moment by Sarah Huckabee Sanders, until Donald Trump realizes that she, like Sean Spicer, does not actually possess the power to bend reality itself to fit his daily whims, was asked about the latest public developments in the ongoing series of police shootings of unarmed black American men.
Her answer was, ahem, widely noted.
“Certainly, a terrible incident. This is something that is a local matter. And that's something that we feel should be left up to the local authorities at this point in time,” Sanders replied.
Then Ryan asked Sanders about the lingering case of Eric Garner, the New York man who cried out “I can't breathe” in 2014 while in a chokehold administered by New York City police despite the department prohibiting the practice. [...]
“I'm not aware of any specific action. Once again, these will be local matters that should be left up to the local authorities,” Sanders said.
While this notion, that the videotaped nationwide evidence of black American men and boys facing death at the hands of police departments in situations and with a frequency that are not even remotely matched by similar incidents against white Americans, is a "local matter" for each police department and not worthy of the attention of the president—while that is a roundly offensive notion, to be sure, you may take some comfort in remembering that everything Sarah Huckabee Sanders says is a lie to begin with. Her statements are not policy; her statements are merely the daily whistling of the wind.
To be sure, what Sanders means is that the administration is going to continue to refuse all meaningful comment on such police violence. This is to be expected. First, Donald is a racist whose own history of demonizing non-white persons as “rapists” or guilty-no-matter-what-investigators-say is well known. Second, his administration is a shipwreck of old, lower-tier Republican racists elevated into unexpected positions of power; each of them, like Jeff Sessions, has worked to expand police power and reduce police accountability as matter of actual policy. Third, Donald does not want to talk about police shootings because saying anything even the slightest bit reasonable would give his core base of very shouty and distinctly white-nationalist infused supporters an election-year tummyache; the White House garbage fire faces a choice of saying what those supporters want Donald to say, which is that police should be executing more Americans for cheaper reasons, or shutting the hell up.
And Sarah Huckabee Sanders and anyone else still hoping for a career after Team Garbage Fire is very, very, very much of the hope that Donald will keep his mouth shut.
But Sanders saying that police violence is specifically considered to be, by the White House, "left up to the local authorities" is speaking above her pay grade. The White House does not even have that much, as policy; the only "policy" to speak of is that Sarah Sanders does not want to answer the question. She also stonewalls reporters who ask about Trump's mistresses with the assertion that the White House "already" responded to those questions; they never have. She brushes aside every Russia question with similar cheap lies. She is not a propagandist; that word implies a wider strategy. She is merely a liar. Stop attributing any meaning to her words, even that much; you and I both know the White House press shop has no working knowledge of such things. Ever.
That said: keep asking the questions, reporters. You will get a different answer eventually, and that is worth something. It will also be a lie, as will the third and fourth go-rounds, but each time the question is asked it makes Sarah Sanders look like a vapid idiot for being able to come up with no answer other than a blanket refusal to so much as weigh in. And that is worth something, too; eventually the Trump "administration" will be over and we will have to scribble down the history of all of this, and putting individual names to individual acts of cynicism and cowardice will be step number one.