Maureen Dowd, a columnist for the New York Times, sharply criticized the Biden administration for pressuring both ABC News and herself regarding President Joe Biden’s use of the word “goodest” during a recent interview with George Stephanopoulos.
Dowd initially quoted Biden as saying, “I did the goodest job as I know I can do,” based on her own and her researcher’s careful review of the video and ABC’s transcript. However, after publishing her column, she received communication from Biden’s campaign asking her to revise the quote to match ABC’s updated transcript, which had changed “goodest” to “good as.”
Dowd described the Biden campaign’s request as pressuring her to alter her column to align with ABC’s revised transcript, despite believing both versions were unclear and potentially inaccurate. The campaign insisted ABC News had independently corrected the transcript, though Dowd remained skeptical about the details of this process.
Maureen Dowd Criticizes Biden Administration Over Transcript Dispute
She noted the incident as indicative of broader tensions between the White House, characterized by what she described as a cover-up regarding Biden’s aging, and the press corps, who she likened to ferrets in their pursuit of accuracy and transparency.
This confrontation isn’t the first between Dowd and Biden; she famously exposed Biden for plagiarism in 1987, an incident she recalled in a recent op-ed criticizing Biden’s presidency as starting too late and marked by decline. Dowd’s critiques underscore her concerns about Biden’s leadership amid a rapidly changing world and significant domestic challenges.
In her latest column, Dowd highlighted the incident with “goodest” not just as a linguistic curiosity but as a symptom of broader issues between the administration and the media, suggesting it reflects a defensive posture from the White House and a watchdog approach from journalists.
She ended on a wry note, suggesting the White House might consider closed captioning to avoid such controversies in the future, highlighting the ongoing friction between the administration and the press.
