There Is One Word the White House Has Refused to Say Since the Nashville School Shooting
Approximately 42 years after the birth of Jesus, a new word came into existence: Χριστιανούς in the Greek, which has been translated “Christians” in print since at least 1526.
Judging by the past week, it’s possible that members of the Biden administration have never heard the word before.
In the context of the heinous shooting at Covenant Presbyterian School last week, opinion writer Tim Meads noted the recent nonuse of the word in a Friday piece for The Daily Wire titled, “Has The White House Even Said The Word ‘Christian’ Since The Nashville School Shooting?”
The answer, according to Meads and my own research, would appear to be “no.”
Meads noted that President Joe Biden’s official “Proclamation on Honoring the Victims of the Tragedy in Nashville, Tennessee,” issued over his name on the day of the shooting, mentioned neither the term nor the (obviously Christian) name of the school the shooter targeted.
Why didn’t Biden mention the Covenant Presbyterian School by name in his official proclamation?
Has the White House even said the word “Christian” all week? pic.twitter.com/tpdqFjhWqH
— Tim Meads (@TimMeadsUSA) March 31, 2023
Biden failed to mention that the shooter identified as transsexual, as well, although that was probably more understandable given the timing and circumstances of the statement.
Meads then noted that the president’s official Twitter account had mentioned the faith of four Muslim men killed in New Mexico last August, Asian-Americans on 2021’s National Day of Action and Healing, and the LGBTQ+ community on the fifth anniversary of the Pulse Nightclub shooting in Florida.
Biden also had no trouble mentioning Christians when they were celebrating, rather than mourning.
Odd… pic.twitter.com/qqzpLBzyOt
— Tim Meads (@TimMeadsUSA) March 31, 2023
Of course, it’s also the job of White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre to speak for the president, so Meads checked out her Twitter account as well.
Despite the shooting at a Christian school in Nashville that had occurred four days previously, Meads found no mention on Jean-Pierre’s account of “Christians” since a December Christmas tweet — and no mention of Nashville at all.
— Tim Meads (@TimMeadsUSA) March 31, 2023
He did find that “Christian” appeared once on Joe Biden’s other (supposedly more personal, I guess) Twitter account, but in this case it was a man’s first name and the tweet was nearly three years old anyway.
hmmm. pic.twitter.com/KrymUYIUek
— Tim Meads (@TimMeadsUSA) March 31, 2023
Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I tend to be skeptical of any claim that suggest that someone “always” does something or has “never” done something. People just don’t tend to be that consistent, and such claims are often rhetorical hyperbole.
So I searched the transcripts of all the White House Press Briefings from March 27 through the following Monday morning. Want to guess what I found? (Go ahead and guess; I’m pitching you a softball here.)
The word “Christian” does not appear in any of them. Not once.
Why would that be? Meads left his readers to form their own conclusions, and certainly I’m not better a mind-reader than he is.
I will note, however, that politicians are professional communicators; they can certain make mistakes, but the consistent unwillingness of the administration to use the term over the course of a full week simply doesn’t lend itself being explained away by accident or coincidence.
The president and his staff know who his voters are — and who they aren’t. And he has very little interest in speaking to the latter.
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