Yesterday Ben Bowles noted that Biden Deputy Press Secretary TJ Ducklo had been suspended without pay for one week after threatening to “destroy” a journalist and using some salty language in doing so. The punishment might have been viewed as fitting the crime had Biden not made a threat himself on Day 1 of his presidency to “fire on the spot” any staffer who treated a “colleague with disrespect.” As things stand, Biden appears to have revealed a flaw in his character by saying one thing and doing another.
But the story doesn’t end there. Yesterday, a day after his sentence was meted out, Ducklo tendered his resignation, writing, according to CNN Business, “I know this was terrible. I know I can’t take it back. But I also know I can learn from it and do better.”
But the resignation raises a new question: Did Ducklo resign because he is genuinely contrite after reflecting on his misdeeds or did he fall on his sword so that Biden could save face?
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
The nature of the comments he made to Politico reporter Tara Palmeri, which were described by Vanity Fair as “misogynistic,” suggest he lacks the maturity and professionalism to have seen the errors of his ways so promptly. (Consider that he told Palmeri she was “jealous” that an unidentified man in the past had “wanted to f*ck” another woman “and not her”).
So it’s worth asking: Is this the way Biden intends to handle occasions when he “steps in it”?
