If I wasn’t already the biggest Ron DeSantis fan on the site, and I’m pretty sure I am, this may go ahead and push it over the edge.

The Governor of Florida has shown himself not to be just dynamite on policy, especially in his handling of COVID and not giving into non-scientific, fear-based nonsense, but he’s also quickly become perhaps the best politician in the country when it comes to handling the media. It’s not just that he’s willing to engage, but it’s how he engages that makes it so satisfying, and yes, necessary.

Yesterday, he took another reporter to task, and this may be his best work yet.

It’s good for reporters to be reminded that they’re not immune from being called out to their faces. Sheeeesh.

pic.twitter.com/MhE0B31NSn

— Cabot Phillips (@cabot_phillips) January 5, 2021

If you can’t watch the clip, what it shows is a smug, reporter attempting to paint Florida’s vaccine roll-out as being botched and overly slow. DeSantis is having none of it, stopping her during her grandstanding and attempting to answer her false allegations. She gets combative and demands over and over to be able to “finish” her question. He eventually lets her, though he was right that she had already asked it and just wanted to give a speech. The second half of the clip is DeSantis just leveling her with what is really happening, ending by pointing out that it’s not the state’s job to dictate to individual hospitals to whom they distribute the vaccine and that attempting such top-down control would be disastrous (he’s right, see New York’s awful vaccine rollout).

Now, there are many in the conservative commentariat who don’t like this. They’d ask why it’s necessary to be so forward and dismissive of a reporter. The answer is that it’s absolutely necessary to kill narratives like this before they even really take their first breath. Florida’s vaccine rollout is not slow. DeSantis, and the federal government before him, have gotten the vaccines where they need to go. At that point, it’s best to let local officials (i.e. the medical facilities themselves) come up with a plan that best suits their situation for distribution. DeSantis notes a hospital in Lee County that is doing just that. The reporter seems to be insinuating that because there was a line, that means things are being botched. No, lines are going to happen if you are giving something out that is in high demand. Insinuations to the contrary are false and obviously partisan nonsense.

I’ll end by noting that this isn’t some big name reporter, providing more evidence that it’s not just CNN’s more recognizable faces who are absolute hacks. This stuff starts in journalism schools across the country, grows in local newsrooms, and eventually makes it to the national scene, permeating all levels of it. They are almost all viciously partisan actors.

Today's joke: I'm told the object seen behind me is where they're putting the CNN reporter who Gov. DeSantis humiliated recently. https://t.co/OmhLdGB7M1

— Emerald Robinson ✝️ (@EmeraldRobinson) January 5, 2021

Meanwhile, DeSantis continues to gain in stature. He’s not just owning the libs to own the libs, though that’s certainly a worthy cause. He owns them because it needs to happen for the betterment of his state, and he’s able to do it in an efficient and devastating way.

(Please follow me on Twitter! @bonchieredstate)