Jen Psaki, chief defender and spokesperson for the Biden administration, has won another prestigious award for her work as Biden’s most successful flack. The Jabberwocky award, initially a sarcastic inside joke among the White House press corps, is awarded each year to the current administration’s most agile verbal acrobat. For those not familiar with Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass, the Urban Dictionary defines jabberwocky as “…rambling which resembles a civilized language but in fact is meant only to obfuscate meaning.”
Psaki, having won plaudits from Chris Wallace and other talking head notables for her brusque and clinically robotic verbal combat chops, was announced as this year’s recipient of the Jabberwocky for her preternatural ability to fill a room with chameleon-like speech sounds that verge on actual language, but that mean whatever the listener chooses them to mean. Each award comes with a shiny engraved plate (defiantly labeled “fake gold”) that contains a lightly amended excerpt from the Lewis Carroll poem:
"Beware the JabberPsaki, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!”
At the award ceremony, the usually icy Ms. Psaki was gracious and even cracked a rare and generous smile, which caused those closest to her in the press pit to back away in surprise at the sight of her bared teeth. “Thank you for this,” she said, nearly tearing up. “This means almost nothing, coming from you guys.”
“Was that more Jabberwocky, Jen?” Peter Doocy of Fox News asked, instantly killing the faintly human buzz that had almost made itself felt in the Red Queen’s press room.
“Well, as you know, Peter, I have already won many awards for my work here, and I will have to see if there is room on my display shelf for this one,” Psaki replied acidly, brandishing the trophy at arms-length as though it had suddenly begun emitting wheezy gusts of the COVID-19 virus.
Not at all deterred by Psaki’s signature sarcasm, Doocy shot back, “Is it true that at the recent summit in Geneva Vladimir Putin described you to President Biden as, and I quote, ‘a young, educated and beautiful woman who gets things confused all the time.’”
“Just like Putin, I think your time’s up, Peter,” Psaki said darkly. “You should keep in mind that at William and Mary College I was president of the Chi Omerta sorority. If that fact is confusing to you, I will ask one of my sisters, now in the FBI, to explain it to you personally. Would 4:00 a.m. on some random day work for you?”
As the briefing ended, a clutch of left leaning scolds clucked angrily around Doocy to badger and shame him for ruining an almost beautiful moment of something vaguely like comity in the often-combative room.
“What the hell, you pasty-face, white fascist Fox News ding-dong,” Yamichi Alcindor of NBC news screamed, enraged that Doocy’s unprovoked attack had ruined the Jabberwocky award ceremony.
“You know what the hell, Yamichi; you just pretend not to,” Doocy replied, embarrassed at the emotional outburst. “That silver Psaki tongue has some sharp and cutting edges. What goes around comes around.”
“It’s always that same old Fox News playground macho bullshit with you, Doocy,” Alcindor huffed. “Just keep that tiny little worm in your pants and it won’t get bitten off next time.”
