Here’s one way you can tell liberal reporters are upset that Stephen Miller embarrassed Jim Acosta and his “cosmopolitan bias” and “ignorance” from the White House podium. The Washington Post gossip section is complaining about the alleged hypocrisy of his elitist condominium home.
On the front page of Tuesday’s Style section – the “Reliable Source” gossip column is typically on page 2 – came the headline “Trump adviser has his own ‘cosmopolitan’ abode in DC.” Post gossip Emily Heil almost dripped with contempt:
White House senior adviser Stephen Miller famously used the adjective “cosmopolitan” to insult CNN’s Jim Acosta during an exchange in the White House briefing room last week, implying that the journalist somehow bore an air of swampy elitism.
But wait, what’s that expression about people in glass houses?
It turns out that Miller calls home a nearly $1 million condo in CityCenter, one of Washington’s poshest addresses and a complex that proudly offers residents an upscale, urbane lifestyle. With high-end international retailers such as Hermès and Gucci on the street level alongside fancy Italian, Asian and French eateries, the building is billed as “the new ideal for sophisticated, modern, urban living.” Also in the marketing materials is the slogan: “You are where you live.”
Which would make Miller … well, pretty cosmopolitan, in a city that is arguably among the most cosmopolitan in the world.
Heil then went on to explain that "family connections" must be enabling Miller to buy such swanky properties. His salaries wouldn't support his residences. As you might expect, the Post’s gossips are very deeply embedded in a double standard. Miller isn't exactly buying DC real estate like Post-owning billionaire Jeff Bezos.
Heil also retweeted Jim Acosta agreeing with Post political correspondent Aaron Blake as he promoted the gossip item:
We recently noted Heil performed this same ritual in attacking the fiance of Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin for her taste in diamonds. The Post wouldn't pull this trick on Barack and Michelle Obama. They wouldn't mention their reported $65 million book deal as they wrote on May 31 about the Obamas bought a mansion in D.C. for $8.1 million. They wouldn't mention the Town & Country article ogling the nine and a half bathrooms. No, that just made them cooler. They earned it by their stellar performance in the White House! (Heil did answer a question about her greatest weakness by saying "Tie: snobbery and bourbon.")
Or take Bernie Sanders and his third home. On August 10, 2016, Heil’s gossip partner Helena Andrews-Dyer (author of the memoir Bitch Is The New Black) placed a ten-foot-pole between the Post and the busybodies of the “hypocrisy police.”
The headline was "Bernie Sanders buys a $575,000 vacation home and the Internet cries hypocrisy."
Bernie Sanders does not like fancy-schmancy things. He isn't a huge fan of gazillionaires, tuxedos or any of the highfalutin trappings of society's economic ills. This, of course, made him a hero among the country's growing socialist movement. So when news came that the former presidential candidate bought a $575,000 vacation home for his family, the hypocrisy police were ready to pounce in all caps.
The Sanders family's "new waterfront crib has four bedrooms and 500 feet of Lake Champlain beachfront," according to the Vermont newspaper Seven Days, which broke the news on Monday. Sanders's spokesman, Michael Briggs, told us the home is 1,800 square feet (hardly a mansion). Jane O'Meara Sanders, the senator's wife, said she had "always hoped" to buy a home in the area, which has more of a country village vibe than Hamptons feel.
Just a 40-minute drive from Burlington, "the islands" - local lingo for the chain of bridge-connected islands that dot Lake Champlain, the sixth largest in the country - are a popular New England summer and fall destination with sparkling views of the Adirondack Mountains. They boast 200 miles of shoreline, scenic bike paths and birdwatching.
It all sounds like a pretty nice and not at all over-the-top getaway for the Sanders clan, which includes Sanders's son from a previous relationship, his wife's three children from her first marriage, their spouses and seven grandkids. In her statement to Seven Days, Jane Sanders even added the extra tidbit (probably anticipating the criticism) that the sale of her own family's vacation home in Maine precipitated the purchase of the Lake Champlain house.
But Bernie-files [sic] and Bern-outs alike soon cried foul on social media and in headlines about the senator's third home (the Sanderses also have homes in Washington and Burlington) because apparently socialism and diversified real estate portfolios don't mix. There are several sub Reddit threads dedicated to the senator's real estate news.
For his part, Sanders has yet to respond to the criticism and calls for donor refunds. He's probably too busy writing his forthcoming book. Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In is set to hit bookshelves on Nov. 15.
Andrews-Dyer locates herself on Twitter not as based in D.C, but as "By Obama and 'nem."
