Vogue circles wagons around the Biden admin with KJP profile

Vogue is on a hot streak when it comes to elevating the underqualified ladies of the Biden administration, with Karine Jean-Pierre the latest to receive the magazine’s star treatment.

The women’s fashion mag gave Vice President Kamala Harris the cover just one day before her inauguration in January 2021… a cover which was heavily criticized for its awful lighting and less-than-chic fashion direction. The VP’s famously restrained entourage let anyone who’d listen know that they had not approved the image, and cowed the magazine into releasing their preferred shot as a digital edition. First Lady Jill Biden — a “joy multiplier” and “goddess” — nabbed her own cover that July. The following month, press secretary Jen Psaki received a glowing profile in which Vogue claimed there was a “collective swoon” the first time she took the briefing room podium.

Barf. They were almost as bad as the recent Women’s Health cover in which Dr. Jill is praised for her “luminous skin” and “innate vitality and effervescence.”

Vogue may have topped itself though with a new profile released today of KJP, the history-making White House press secretary.

Jean-Pierre is styled impeccably in the photos for the piece, donning a $3,000 red designer suit and multiple dresses that run between $1-2k. An interesting choice of aesthetic given the top concern for Americans heading into the 2024 election is the economy and inflation, and the Biden administration’s answer is the ill-fated “Bidenomics.” Is this the “tragedy of the treadmill that’s delayed,” Part II?

Vogue enthusiastically praises Jean-Pierre’s performance at the podium, insisting that she “disarms” tough questions with a smile and “lay[s] out the facts at hand.” If you ask the fashion magazine, Jean-Pierre is both a brave truth-teller and courageous defender of her boss, President Joe Biden. Of course, only one of those things can be true at one time.

In one example of Jean-Pierre being “blunt, with a touch of compassion,” Vogue recalls when she defended student debt forgiveness by bringing up the fact that several GOP members had Covid-19 business loans forgiven. Of course, Jean-Pierre conveniently left out that it was a condition of those pandemic-era loans that they would be forgiven so long as they were used for payroll. Vogue helpfully doesn’t mention this either.

Vogue even dutifully downplayed a briefing room scandal at Jean-Pierre’s hands. Jean-Pierre claimed in one briefing earlier this year amid the Biden classified document scandal that a search of Biden’s home and offices had turned up no new materials. In reality, more classified documents had indeed been found. This led to a Washington Post article in which multiple reporters and even former Obama officials criticized Jean-Pierre’s approach to the job and suggested she was not involved in high-level decision-making at the White House. Vogue describes Jean-Pierre’s podium snafu, though, as an instance of merely giving “incomplete” information.

There was one bit of news in the profile. We learned that Jean-Pierre has split from her partner, former CNN anchor Suzanne Malveaux. The former couple are now co-parenting a daughter.

“I’m a single mom who is co-parenting this amazing kid,” Jean-Pierre says. “Our number-one priority is her privacy and to make sure we create an environment that’s nurturing.”

Cockburn would have liked to read similar lifestyle pieces about Trump press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, who had a six-month-old baby when she took the job, or Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who has three children. Alas, the closest we got to a style profile of Sanders was when comedienne Michelle Wolf made a snarky comment about her smoky eye shadow. The Washington Post, meanwhile, described McEnany as “maximum gloss,” adding that “her style has become familiar to the public: she does not particularly like sleeves. She prefers bold colors.”

Compare that denigrating tone to Vogue’s gushing mention of Jean-Pierre’s penchant for colorful frocks: “She meets the White House press corps almost daily — favoring bright colors and bold eye shadow when she does — and, while she’s more reserved than some of her predecessors and less likely to respond to provocation with a social media–ready retort, she has sharpened her own technique.”

Sigh. Who’s next? Gina Raimondo and her tweed blazers? Deb Haaland and tribal jewelry? Cockburn waits with bated breath.