Posted on 05/07/2010 3:20:40 AM PDT by Man50D
Rest of Title: in Interview With Newsweek Editor
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said he did not know and could not imagine asking President Barack Obama whether he used the vulgar sexual term “tea baggers” to describe Americans active in the Tea Party movement.
“I can’t imagine I would ask the president that,” Gibbs said at Thursday’s White House press briefing.
According to Newsweek senior editor and columnist Jonathan Alter in his new book, The Promise: President Obama, Year One, the president used the slur to describe the largely conservative activists of the Tea Party movement, which has been a major force in opposition to the president's agenda over the past year.
“Tea bagging” is slang for a form of sexual contact, and a “tea bagger” is someone who engages in that act.
Alter’s book is scheduled to be released later this month. It quotes Obama saying that Republican opposition to the $787-billion economic stimulus bill “helped create the tea baggers and empowered their whole wing of the Republican Party where it now controls the agenda for the Republicans.”
At Thursday’s White House press briefing, CNSNews.com asked: “In Jonathan Alter’s new book the president is quoted as using a vulgar term to describe the Tea Party movement. Is the quote accurate and, if so, does the president regret saying it?”
Gibbs said: “I barely have time to read my own briefing books. No offense to Jonathan, but I have not read his book.”
CNSNews.com followed up: “So, is the answer you don’t know?”
Gibbs said: “The answer is, I haven’t read the book.”
Another reporter asked Gibbs if he would find out whether President Obama in fact used the term "tea bagger."
Gibbs said: “I can’t imagine I would ask the president that.”
Alter's citation of the president using the term "tea bagger" is ironic given the commencement address the president delivered last Saturday at the University of Michigan. In that address, Obama criticized the uncivil discourse of politicians, pundits and talking heads.
“We've got politicians calling each other all sorts of unflattering names,” Obama said. “Pundits and talking heads shout at each other. The media tends to play up every hint of conflict because it makes for a sexier story--which makes anyone interested in getting coverage feels compelled to make the most outrageous comments.”
If Obama has a presssure the press could ask him directly.
Isn’t he having a press conference this very morning, after the unemployment numbers are released?
If the press had a pressure, they could probably “ask him directly” sometime during the course of it.
Obama’s nasty put downs of middle America are not politically smart. Every time he says something like this, conservative turnout next November goes up.
Other presidents have said worse...this one doesn’t deserve the office but not because of slurs.
“Reporters”..they seem to be afraid to ask...what a bunch of cowards.
Worst president ever.
Does that mean that if obammma was talking about women rights and used the words sexy bitches he wouldn’t be called out on it
I Had a visitor on Tuesday from the US Census, - the lady walked right into my garage and demanded I fill out the census form. I simply stated - When the president can release the college transcripts and his official birth certificate, as well as stop calling me an American citizen deragtory names and so forth. until then stay off my property and get out of my garage.
Really??? You have an example?? "I" certainly can't think of a "verbal emission" from another president that matches Obama's slurs.
I’m not sure, but I think it’s possible that FDR may have used an ugly word for citizens of the Empire of Japan a time or two.
Of course, we were in an all out war with them at the time.
You've never heard of the antics of Lyndon Johnson?
You've never heard the language Nixon used behind closed doors on the Watergate tapes?
It is amazing how Obama and Gibbs evade questions and the press lets them get away with it. I am especially irritated when one of them is asked a question and he responds with “Let me just say this” and then goes off on some red herring issue but does not answer the question posed.
Gibbs appears to me like one who would enjoy being teabagged.
A manufactured report and manufactured lies from the liar-in-chief... here comes the rainbows and skittles speech again... for the 100th time!
LLS
Nixon's secretary routinely blanked out/censored expressions such as "darn".
We who come after have decided to take all those "****" she left and fill them with what we think Nixon was saying.
In reality his tapes were cleaner than an episode of the Waltons.
Yes to both. I was both adult and following politics for both of those incidents, and IMO, neither comes close to matching Obama.
0bagger is the chief tea-bagger.
Shenanigans with Larry Sinclare, the Pakistani boyfriend on the couch and 0kaka’s communist pedophile mentor, Marshall Davis, support the above statement.
The one who started using the term “tea-bagger” publicly is another homo, Anderson Cooper.
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