As we enter Day 3 of our national nightmare of a reporter from the Huffington Post asking a question at a press conference, the Gray Lady speaks out on the controversy that has gripped the nation:
The problem … is that he was cherry-picked, with a call-upon hours and hours beforehand, and handed a status that no one among the so-called elite of the press corps receives on any given day…the perception of a favored one who got exceptionally advance notice may send signals — far and wide — as to what lengths the administration will go to stage and control the message the president wants to send.
Greg Sargent smartly compares the outrage over Pitneygate to the positive coverage “Mission Accomplished” garnered from the liberal media:
…the contrast between the media’s overall immediate reaction to “mission accomplished” and its current angst is instructive. Is it really a coincidence that the same “staged” event that’s provoking so much media outrage also happens to be one that took status-conscious journalists down a few pegs at a time of great uncertainty in their profession?
What’s more, the complaint that White House “staging” is inherently wrong is just bogus. Politicians stage events all the time for all kinds of reasons. The real question should be this: Was the reason for the White House’s managed question a defensible one? Yes, it helped Obama by making him look supportive of Iranian protesters. But it also allowed an ordinary Iranian to ask a tough question of the leader of the free world. Whatever “status” was granted Nico Pitney was also accorded the Iranian questioner. Can anyone seriously argue that this goal didn’t justify this relatively minor breach of Beltway press protocol?
I’m willing to admit that human beings are, for the most part, primarily interested in their own status in society. But has there ever been a group that was more nakedly obsessed with status than our contemporary national press corps?
r€nato
Jeff Gannon, anyone?
(why has our so-called liberal media never bothered to figure out who was this gay escort’s ‘patron’ at the WH? This guy had more WH sleepovers than all the Clinton WH Lincoln Bedroom tenants combined!)
polyorchnid octopunch
Yeah, there was… the court of Louis XIV.
Courtiers, the lot of them.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
If you don’t add any value, if there is literally nothing that you do all day on any given day that a rational objective person would see any point in paying to subsidize with their own money, then status and pecking order is all you have. It isn’t just part of your world, it is your world. See Versailles, Court of.
malraux
High school cheerleaders? Beyond that, dunno.
But on the big issue, is there ever a press conference where abc, nbc, etc don’t get a question? Moreover, remember back to Bush where there was a fucking list of who was going to be called and in what order? About press conferences as minor in importance as say, should we go to war in iraq?
Hunter Gathers
They have to be. These turds couldn’t get a square job if their life depended on it.
Kiril
And of course I have already seen more coverage of this than of the years-long Pentagon propaganda operation that funneled hand-picked Pentagon advocates, complete with official talking points, into news programs as “independent” “experts.”
Legalize
I might understand the poutrage if the question posed the president was along the lines of “do you love the Iranian people with all your heart at all hours of the day, or only during waking hours?” However, it wasn’t. The question asked the president to clarify what could be seen as a contradiction in the president’s policy toward engagement with Iranian “leadership”. The question actually highlighted a potential problem for the president. Even if this particular question was staged, the only end it served for the president was maybe discussing with the public – in a rational adult manner – the complexity of our relationship with Iran.
No wonder the Villagers are so sad. I’d be sad too if the substance of my questions concerned the president’s smoking habits and whether or not A-Rod is a big meanie for doing steroids, while a DFH actually did some actual reporting on actual issues.
cleek
and let us recall this tale from days of yore:
bwahh!
bwaaahhhhh !!
Joshua Norton
Chuck Todd et al. are a bunch of jealous, whiny little wusses who are unable to rise above their inherent inferiority at the jobs they do.
Obama should just line them all up and deliver a group face slap a la 3 Stooges.
matoko_chan
I am still just astonished at the pettiness and stupidity of the press.
Obama is answering a question form the Sea of Green the only way he can, through Nico. Nico announced he was soliciting questions from Iranians on Huff-Po days ago.
The press is also deaf to another message of support Obama is sending to the Sea of Green. He uses justice and freedom instead of “democracy”, which has become a dirty word in MENA thanks to GW, and he has twice referenced MLK. Obama himself is a powerful visual symbol of triumph over injustice in a once slave-holder nation, and MLK led a religious non-violent civil rights protest movement.
That is Musavi and the Sea of Green…..but the religion is al-Islam instead of christianity.
Bill E Pilgrim
Smeg almighty, if they’d spend half the effort on covering actual news rather than going into Heather vapors for three days about insider-outsider and who’s elite and who’s not, we might actually get somewhere.
You know, covering actual news, like Pitney did.
PeakVT
Google News hits for “troops Iraq” in the past 24 hrs: 1469
Google News hits for “Nico Pitney”in the past 24 hrs: 5519
MissionMasturbation Accomplished!Comrade Stuck
Look on the bright side. At least they haven’t sniffed out Urdugate…………….yet.
Zifnab
Bull-fucking-shit. You get a handful of major TV and newspaper correspondents in the White House press room and maybe, today, a question goes to ABC and tomorrow it goes to the Washington Post, but the idea that these handful of journalistic elites aren’t “handed a status no one [else]” receives is so much crap.
The Huffington Post writer has been allowed how many questions of the President before this? None you say? Rank that with every other person in the room.
Stage and control the message my ass. The MSM is shitting itself in fear, because it’s being forced to compete with rivals it doesn’t believe are worthy competition. They’re the ones trying to keep a grip on national debate, and while Obama is slowly peeling it from their grips, that’s his prerogative as the guy on the Bully Pulpit. If the traditional White House press corps just wants to talk about baseball and dinner dates and petty nonsense, they can do it on their own time. Obama doesn’t have to cater to their needs.
Aaron
I think journalists have officially left the “reality-based community.” This level of narcissism and delusions of grandeur are just appalling from the same press corp that said barely a fucking word as we were lied into war and propagandized for the better part of 8 years (Armstrong Williams, Maggie Gallagher, Jeff Gannon, and the retired pentagon officials, covering up wiretapping, Plamegate, etc)
So how about a little less moaning and a little more STFU and do your jobs
neill
so terrible… the horror, the horror… i think obama oughta buy every single reporter for every single elite-major-super-duper-important-“behold-I-am-the-sun”-media outlet a great big burger king “7-incher.”
PaulW
Pitneygate is a major news story?
Compared to what, bombs going off in Iraq killing more than 60 people? Thousands of Iranians fighting in the streets for their human rights? A South Carolinian Governor abandoning his post for 6 six days to get some Argentinian love poetry written? The far-too-high unemployment rate still threatening our nation’s economy? The collapse of viable healthcare reform in the face of lobbyist evil, Republican ignorance and Democratic cowardice? Compared to about 10 to 20 other major stories that, you know, ACTUALLY AFFECT REAL PEOPLE???
Dear Media: GET OVER IT. Unless Pitney was giving people in the WH blowjobs in order to get press clearance, this is a fucking non-story. GET. OVER. IT. And Media: GO OUT AND DO YOUR FUCKING JOB! REPORT!!! GET THE FACTS, JACK!!! (headthump)
Part of me is wondering if I was the only one to ever get an A in Journalism Ethics class, not just at UF but I mean *every* college journalism program on the planet. JEBUS FRAKKIN CHRIS… (headthump)
par4
Congress
Woody
What Pitney did that was UNFORGIVABLE was the he showed up the shallow, callow hacks of the celebrity-struck WhiteHouse press corpse for the stenographers they have so apparently easily and complacently become so adept and comfortable at being during these previous 8 years.
Anoniminous
The US news media is hemorrhaging readers and therefore ad revenue. Only 18% (2007 Pew Survey) of the 18 – 30 cohort read a newspaper every day with only 9% of teenagers. They get their news from the internet and from the likes of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.
By his action Obama “validated” this market trend.
The Press reaction is driven by economics.
Napoleon
@Zifnab:
Actually the answer is one (Nico’s question a few days ago was the second a HuffPost blogger has asked an Obama presser) and certain segments of the press went nuts about that, and they didn’t even have some BS “fact” like a “staged” question to hang their obsessive conduct on. That tells you how this newest fauxrage has nothing to do how HuffPost came to ask the question and everything about the fact it was HuffPost that asked it.
The press in this country is well and truly broke and incompetent.
The Grand Panjandrum
The long arc of the Villager universe bends toward status-concious self-absorption.
The Other Steve
Have you ever seen the movie Heathers?
Then of course there is Clueless, and Mean Girls and…
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
The childish and inbred nature of the WH press corps is a very old and tiresome story. More to the point, what can we do to change this situation for the better?
Seems to me that Obama calling on Nico is a symptom of the growing irrelevance of big media. Nico and his contacts have done more to publicize the details of what is going on in Iran (a story in which the details matter very much) than all the major networks combined, and audience share among the folks who actually are paying attention to this story reflects that shift. He didn’t just crash that WH press conference for no reason; he earned the right to be there based on actual work, and in fact was the only guy in the room who potentially deserves a Pulitzer for reporting on the Iranian uprising story. Nobody else in that room can make that claim, and everybody there knew it except the ones who are so out to lunch they might as well be out hiking the Appalachian Trail.
That is why the TV networks and traditional print dinosaurs are pushing back so hard on this “issue” – because they are slowly bleeding audience share and they know it. This poutrage storm is a positive sign – it means that they are starting to feel the heat. As Satchel Paige said “Don’t look back, something might be gaining on you”. Big media are doing a whole lot of looking back right now.
Zach
I wonder what brilliant questions on the Iranian issue were asked by the press corps, once they had their chance:
Don
If the griping was limited to the issue of a media outlet being asked to prepare a question on a particular topic ahead of time, I could live with that. I think it’s stupid, given that organizations have specialties as do reporters, but it strikes me as something reasonable people can disagree about.
However moving beyond that into this false parallel with Gannon – a wholely fake reporter who does not answer to any readers or editors – or the Mission Accomplished banner – an event that the WH went out of their way to promote and make visible after it happened – is just foolish. It’s foolish if for no other reason that media outlets look stupid and petty when they whine that The People don’t care about the right things, even after the media goes out of its way to tell them they should care.
Bill E Pilgrim
For the news media to be Heathering about this when in the same news conference one of them asked “How many cigarettes do you smoke a day?” disguised as a question supposedly about a health plan is just inviting ridicule.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Zach – nice summary.
Here a little hint for the WH press corps: “reporting” is a verb, not an adjective. It is something you do, not something you are. Start doing it or we’ll find somebody else who does.
Travis
@The Other Steve: Or, if you like French movies, Ridicule (1996), which actually was about the pompous ass-kissing of the courtiers hanging about the Sun King’s court. One of my all-time favorite movies: funny & tart & sexy.
The Saff
If memory serves, wasn’t it Jeff Zeleny from the NY Times who asked Obama, at the last presser, what enchanted him most about being president?
Brian J
I’d like to play devil’s advocate and give the old school media outlets some credit, but I’m having a hard time coming up with reasons.
Aaron
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
See Anon’s post – we already have :-)
oh really
It seems like the real complaint is that the “elite of the press corps” weren’t given the status that is their due. Of course, that would require that all press conferences be the exclusive province of the elites.
It doesn’t seem to occur to these cretins that every question asked is the property of every news outlet. It doesn’t matter who asks it. If it’s a good question, they can report on the answer. If it’s a bad question, they can whine about the waste of time. But who gives a shit who asks the question? That obviously doesn’t mean that Fox News (or any other entity) should ask every question. However, it seems to me that this particular questioner expanded, rather than narrowed, the questioner pool.
Besides, don’t the elites have an adulterer to cover?
Zach
@Bill E Pilgrim: I thought the “how many cigarettes” question was really good and Obama’s response was annoying. The question is, “What impact will this law have on the percentage of people who smoke? What about people like you?” If Obama’s pushing the law, he should have that answer.
Napoleon
@The Saff:
Yes
AkaDad
That blogger doesn’t deserve to be in the White House. He hasn’t spent years kissing ass and sucking up to the right people. It’s not fair!
Brachiator
While trying to get through the solipsistic nonsense of the NY Times blog piece, I was caught up short by this fragment:
It’s thorn in the side, morons!
They can’t even get their whining straight.
Aside from this, these fools seem absolutely obsessed with the obvious annoyance that Obama often shows for the meaningless social proprieties of the Beltway crowd.
The president has an agenda! Oh, no, clutch the pearls!
The president does not follow the protocol that the press demands! Oh, my stars!
We’re supposed to take this shit seriously? Especially when news becomes an increasingly shallow infotainment kubuki?
Perhaps Obama should have asked the assembled media a question, such as why MSNBC could barely see fit to cover the Iranian election aftermath during the critical weekend when the most protests occurred (At MSNBC, weekends aren’t newsworthy)?
Instead of doing their jobs to report the freaking news, these clods have regressed to their high school selves, concerned with who are the cool kids.
Oh, well. At least we know that Obama is the dudiest dude since Ferris Bueller:
Grace: Oh, he’s very popular Ed. The sportos, the motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, waistoids, dweebies, dickheads – they all adore him. They think he’s a righteous dude.
sarah
who are they even whining to? who would possibly take their side? stfu
as zach’s culled examples show, they ask moronic questions anyways.
recardo cabeza
Ironic that The Mighty Wurlitzer pwns the dying Grey Lady while attacking it’s successor.
I guess you use the tools you have, not the ones you need.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Zach:
I saw it exactly the other way around and I don’t know where you got your quote of what the question was, but that wasn’t it.
“MCCLATCHY: Thank you, Mr. President. As a former smoker, I understand the frustration and the fear that comes with quitting, but with the new law that you signed yesterday regulating the tobacco industry, I would like to ask you a few questions, how many cigarettes a day —
OBAMA: A few questions?
MCCLATCHY: Well — how many cigarettes a day do you smoke? Do you smoke alone or in the presence of other people? And do you believe the new law would help you to quit and why? “
The last part felt like an afterthought to justify the purient interest question, and I thought he dealt with it perfectly after giving a well-deserved jab at the gossipy disingenous nature of it.
As far as “he should have that answer”, who says he didn’t?
Am I missing something? Did you?
Brick Oven Bill
If someone in the Press Corps really wants status, here is my suggestion:
“Mr. President, the murderer Von Bruun listed a number of grievances before he shot and killed a security guard at the Holocaust Museum recently. One of these grievances was your unwillingness to produce a birth certificate for anyone other than the Annenberg Group that funds Bill Ayers. Many other people, including military members, and the potentially violent fringe groups that DHS is tracking, are expressing similar concerns.
In the interest of putting an end to this, are you willing to produce your birth certificate for review by an independent agency?”
Why does nobody ask this question I ask.
jwb
Except that arc is not very long. Unfortunately.
The Moar You Know
@Brachiator: In a just world, it would be “bullet in the head”.
The Moar You Know
@Brick Oven Bill: Because it’s a stupid question.
Broken
Nico Pitney was recognized because his Iran coverage blew the doors off that of the MSM. Imagine that, a reporter being recognized for his reporting.
Comrade Stuck
OT
The SCOTUS has ruled in favor of the 13 year old strip searched for Ibuprofin. The vote was 8 to 1, a little surprising. And guess who cast the lone dissenting vote? Why it was none other that whackadoodle Bork’s hero Justice Thomas. No surprise there.
Don
Ya know, my first response to BOB’s birther nonsense was “are you serious?” But now I wonder, why not? Maybe this idiocy needs more press and we should follow the free speech idea that airing out shit makes it stink less. Let the non-wingnuts see what these kooks continue to obsess about. It’s not going to hurt the status of the sane.
Broken
I haven’t been here for a while and there are commenters I don’t recognize.
Is Brick Oven Bill another spoof?
Zach
@Bill E Pilgrim: The bill isn’t entirely about preventing youth smoking. It will also (somewhat) raise the cost of cigarettes, introduce more warning labels, etc. It requires companies to provide more information to the FDA about ingredients, risks, etc. Will access to more information about existing products make people quit? Do warning labels work? Will it affect the President personally? It’s not a bad question, and beyond that, does having a role model President that smokes impact youth smoking more or less than eliminating candy flavored cigarettes?
oh really
Even Scalia considers Thomas to be insane. Thomas is like the last atom on the edge of the lip of the fringe.
Tom G
Glenn Greenwald, who is on this site’s blogroll, does a great job of showing the real issues of concern to the so-called national press corps. I read his page nearly every day.
JenniferI
If I were Obama, I would go completely off the reservation at the next press conference and only pick non traditional media.
Bootlegger
Pre-teen girls and high school jocks. I’d put the MSM with the first group.
Bootlegger
@Broken: If only. He’s been hanging around for awhile, banned a couple of times, and returns after serving his suspension. Ask him about electric trains.
gex
This is a common affliction of the few nerds the jocks decide to let hang out with them. They become the worst of the schoolyard bullies, lest they be relegated back to the group who gets bullied.
harlana pepper
Yup, they’re scared. heh.
sarah
@Broken: he’s like your second cousin who sleeps in the crawl space under the family house
Ash Can
Nico Pitney is doing this journalism thing better than the corporate media are. They know it, and they’re all butthurt about it. The end.
Oh, man. I’d pay some damn good money to see that. If you all thought the facial expressions of Barack & Co. were priceless during this presser (h/t GOS), just think of what they’d be like if a BOB question were asked at one of these things. There wouldn’t be a dry eye in the house.
Mike G
The SCOTUS has ruled in favor of the 13 year old strip searched for Ibuprofin. The vote was 8 to 1, a little surprising. And guess who cast the lone dissenting vote? Why it was none other that whackadoodle Bork’s hero Justice Thomas.
Thomas got so excited at the thought of a stripped 13-year old girl that he forgot which way Scalia told him to vote.
Nylund
I truly believe that ANY news agency that had bothered to reach out directly to Iranians could have been chosen for this question.
But, they were all too busy worrying about whether or not Obama quit smoking, or the awesomeness of John McCain.
In short, the only thing these media groups should be upset about is why they suck so hard at doing their own job.
Major major events are going on in Iran. One guy is aggregating a ton of information and is in direct contact with people who are actually there. Practically everyone else just plays the same damn useless video clip from Iran as a setup piece to an 8 hour segment on all the petty GOP criticisms.
What is more important? The actual news? or the 20+ hours they’ll spend asking, “does the GOP like the way Obama is handling the situation?” Really? Do we REALLY need four 24 news channels dedicated to answering the question that no, the GOP in fact do not approve (surprise surprise, Newt don’t like it!). How about you do some real reporting and get some real news and maybe the White House will call you up too?
trizzlor
Shouldn’t we expect that an expert journalist in a specific area will get called on when that topic is the issue of the day? If it’s steroids in baseball, I would expect sports journalists to get called; if it’s the financial crisis, I would expect (grudgingly) the WSJ to get called; and if it’s Iran, I would expect the guy whose had the best primary source coverage to get called.
I hate to say it, but it’s time for journalists to start realizing that journalism isn’t a science – as much as their J-school tried to convince them otherwise. Years of reporting on a topic makes you good at that topic (and perhaps a better writer) it doesn’t give you an inherent ability to ask a damn question. Maybe if Todd and Garrett had an interesting question directly from an Iranian, there would be an issue here, but as it stands they need to spend less time bitching and more time revising their resume.
tripletee (formerly tBone)
Perhaps the White House should look into installing bidets adjoining the press room, so our useless whiny hacktastic Beltway journos could rinse the sand out of their vaginas on their way out.
But then we’d probably get three days worth of columns complaining about the water temperature.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Zach:
None of which is “do you smoke alone, or in the presence of other people?”
Of course they’re good questions, but that’s not what she asked.
I think they want basically what they got from Sanford yesterday, confessional, emotional, personal high drama. And I mean, he gave them some, Obama I mean, talking about how hard it was for him to struggle with and how it’s like AA and etc. But he stiff-armed the probe for something more tabloidish and gossipy and I admired him for it.
I thought he struck the perfect balance.
Ed Drone
The president is “First Nerd,” and the reporters are jocks and cheer-leaders. Do we need more explanation?
Ed
Cat Lady
@Ash Can:
Those pix are pretty interesting – I never, ever ever want Rahm angry at me.
Bootlegger
@gex: Prescient observation, dead on. We are witnessing the death throes of the current version of the MSM, and it ain’t pretty.
Jason
Senior faculty in departments of English.
Ash Can
@Cat Lady: Can you imagine him if someone were to ask a birther question? Axelrod and Gibbs would have to tackle him to the floor to keep him from throttling the questioner.
John Hamilton Farr
By George, I do believe Jason’s got it! :-) GREAT ANSWER, and right as rain.
Luthe
<blockquote@trizzlor: >I hate to say it, but it’s time for journalists to start realizing that journalism isn’t a science – as much as their J-school tried to convince them otherwise.
They’ve forgotten what journalism is supposed to have learned from science- namely that you gather the facts, then you draw your conclusions, instead of vice-versa. That’s why they are so upset right now: some actually asked a question to obtain a fact, rather than to obtain support for a position that has already been decided on.
Our media has learned its reporting style from the Republican style of argument.
Bas-O-Matic
r€nato
Jeff Gannon, anyone?
(why has our so-called liberal media never bothered to figure out who was this gay escort’s ‘patron’ at the WH? This guy had more WH sleepovers than all the Clinton WH Lincoln Bedroom tenants combined!)
I really want someone to ask these people where there moral outrage was when there was literally a cock-headed man-whore lobbing softballs in the press gaggle.
I seem to remember their reaction as being horrified at the DFH’s mission to “out” the guy.
David Margolies
Small correction to point by Travis (#29): “pompous ass-kissing of the courtiers hanging about the Sun King’s court”. Actually, Louis XVI’s court, just prior to the French Revolution (which ends the movie). The Sun King was Louis XIV. Aside from that, I am in complete agreement with his assessment of the movie and its similarity to the villagers.
HyperIon
Two things…
1. When I went to the dentist today. I noticed that the NYT was no longer available in the waiting room. I’ve been going to this dentist 15 years. When I started, it was quite a treat to read the paper. The last few years it was a curious to compare the dead tree version to the one I read everyday online.
2. wasn’t there a completely scripted Bush press conference after 9/11? maybe 2003? it was decided beforehand who would be called on and which questions would be asked. of course, i did not know that at the time and only learned it later (from Bill Moyers’ Buying the War). i remember being pretty shocked at the time (2007) that the WH press corps would participate in this.
Maude
@HyperIon:
Last time I was at the doctor’s office in May, there were no magazines. I think it’s cost cutting.
Howard Fineman said last year that at the time of 9/11, the press was giving Bush the benefit of the doubt. Of course, that’s not the job of the press and it is complete corruption. It’s also easier than doing research.
HyperIon
@Maude: there were plenty of mags. and some good ones, too. but the NYT was gone.
Brachiator
@Travis:
I second this recommendation. One of the conceits of the film Ridicule is that courtiers battle for attention by trying to impress the aristocrats with the wittiest pun or other feat of wordplay. This game of getting recognition is more important than carrying out the actual duties of the state, and certainly more important than solving the natiion’s problems, and is central to the film’s plot:
To get royal backing on a needed drainage project, a poor French lord must learn to play the delicate games of wit at court at Versailles.
Oh, yeah, and the wordplay comes across well even in the English subtitles, a neat trick.
Imagine, by comparison, reporters competing to come up with the most attention-grabbing question to ask the president at a press conference, without regard to whether their questions relate to issues of national interest.
Marie Devine
There is danger all around. Controlling the press access and questions is how all “infamous” world leaders began.
God has prepared a way for a speedy agreeable transition if the people want to turn toward God’s solutions to our world problems.
God’s word through King Solomon:
Proverbs 17:4 “A wicked doer gives heed to false lips; and a liar gives ear to a naughty tongue.”
17:15 “He that justifies the wicked, and he that condemns the just, even they both are abomination to the LORD.”
Proverbs 16:6,7 “By mercy and truth iniquity is purged: and by the fear of the LORD men depart from evil.”
16:7 When a man’s ways please the LORD, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.”
Barack Obama has been drawn into much deceit and forgery beginning with his birth certificate. Now he can be blackmailed by his own administration or others, even other nations like Kenya, Pakistan and Indonesia that have his records. He has no control over the government. As it gets closer to revealing his identity papers it is dangerous for him because people would fear he would reveal who helped him. He is not in a safe place.
He is in a personal battle, wanting to be a good father and leave good memories for his children, yet being set up for a Nixon type legacy or worse. He is best off to step down with his administration and let the issue end there than to go through the courts. This is God’s point for repentance where they can be forgiven of their sins, for the Bible says, If you confess your sins, he is faithful and just to forgive them.
The charges and evidences against Barack Obama are on my website, court style:
http://www.divine-way.com/forgery_evidences_sss_reg_colb_birth_cert_for_obama_impeachment.html
and
http://obama-birth-cert-forged-sss-impeach.blogspot.com
A copy was sent to Barack Obama and US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald. Both were sent about 2-11-09. Barack Obama clearly thinks he has something to hide. He is his own worse witness in hiding his identity.
Email the president that you want this controversy ended, http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
jerry 101
the traditional media looks a lot worse in this situation than Obama. How big of an indictment of the trad med is it that Obama wants a real question about Iran, something reflective of what Iranian protestors are thinking, and he has to find a blogger to ask the question, and he has to find that blogger in advance.
It shows that he has no faith in the traditional media to do its job. I think Obama would be very happy to engage the traditional media if they were asking real questions, tough questions. Not stupid crap like “are you still smoking, you big old hypocrite?”
If the traditional media asked real questions and published real stories on these real policy issues, instead of stupid shit like the smoking question, then the traditional media wouldn’t appear to be such a decrepit pile of shit.
Seriously, the traditional media and the White House press corps is just an absolute embarrassment.