This past June, celebrated photographer Annie Liebovitz was spotted at the White House to shoot pics of Jen Psaki for an upcoming Vogue profile.

Well, at last, the world’s wait is over, because the piece is out:

And according Vogue, the most important thing about speaking on Jen Psaki’s behalf is blowing as much smoke as possible.

Here’s a particularly obnoxious snippet of the tongue bath:

Psaki recalls of the Obama people, “They’re my friends, and they are some of absolutely the most talented and best people I worked with in politics, but the culture was to yell at reporters, slam the phone down.” After traveling with journalists for weeks on end, and, in many cases, bonding with them, Psaki realized, “That’s never going to be comfortable to me.” Instead, she developed a more personable rapport—charming her interlocutors with little jokes, asking about their hometowns and families. She’s not a pushover, though. At one point, she tells me that she hates when people describe her as “nice.” “It is like nails on a chalkboard,” she says. “And it still happens. I was introduced to a foreign delegation in the hallway the other day as ‘This is Jen. You may have seen her do the briefings. She’s a really nice person.’ I’m like, Really? You can’t think of a better description?” The word is sexist and a little diminishing, but, she says, “it’s also this desire to put people in a box. Yes, sometimes I’m friendly and joyful, and sometimes I’m tough, and sometimes I’m straightforward.” After shadowing Psaki for a bit, I start to think that her real gift is her ability to be several of these things at the same time. Many of her cheerful quips are actually ways of shutting down a line of questioning. When there’s information the administration is not ready to share yet, she’ll respond with a chipper “Stay tuned!” or “Buckle up!” Or she’ll brush aside questions about tense dealmaking by chirping, “Democracy in action!”

We’ll tackle that last part first. Since when is refusing to answer a straightforward question something to be admired? We doubt Vogue would be so enamored of Kayleigh McEnany if she’d insisted on circling back every time she got an inconvenient question. Apparently dodging questions is a “real gift” if you’re doing so on behalf of a Democratic administration.

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But we also need to spend some time on another portion of that passage. This one:

At one point, she tells me that she hates when people describe her as “nice.” “It is like nails on a chalkboard,” she says. “And it still happens. I was introduced to a foreign delegation in the hallway the other day as ‘This is Jen. You may have seen her do the briefings. She’s a really nice person.’ I’m like, Really? You can’t think of a better description?” The word is sexist and a little diminishing, but, she says, “it’s also this desire to put people in a box. Yes, sometimes I’m friendly and joyful, and sometimes I’m tough, and sometimes I’m straightforward.”

Vogue thought that bit was so golden that they highlighted it on Instagram:

Nice (can we still use that word?) of Vogue to promote such a stupid take.

Right?

It’s certainly not “nice.”

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Tags: Jen PsakiNicesexismsexistVogue