Posted on 07/13/2011 12:46:53 PM PDT by COUNTrecount
A long-running tiff between the White House press corps and the West Wing over presidential access flared anew today when press secretary Jay Carney faced off with reporters over the right to shout questions at the president during debt talks.
Obama chafes at the time-honored practice of answering questions shouted at him during pooled, non-press conference events — and his staff has often opted for “stills sprays,” excluding print reporters or TV cameras who might capture Obama in the less than flattering non-act of snubbing a query.
When asked today why TV crews and print reporters were barred from the pool covering the White House meeting with congressional leaders on the deficit, Carney responded by pointing out that the administration has held two press conferences in the past two weeks and allowed TV cameras into the spray earlier this week.
"People shouted questions at him," Carney added.
The White House Correspondents’ Association has protested exclusion of print and TV from pools — and several reporters in the briefing room took Carney’s comment as an annoyed expression of presidential displeasure with shouted questions.
“It's an absurd reason to say that because we asked questions you're not going to allow cameras in there. He's capable of ignoring our questions. He does it all the time,” said Chip Reid of CBS.
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
I hope you are feeling better now. Tapper plays a good game sometimes and gets folks to believing he is gonna play hard ball with Obama and then he always disappoints and falls in line. It’s a big head fake everytime. Pathetic.
So, who wants to see Carney???/ Not me. Can we see the video of where the reporters were shouting at poor widdle obama?
Oh, well. The MSM won’t get their info... and people will have to watch the Dinosaur Media news even less.
LA Times is reporting it.
It seems Baraq can only find time to squeeze in the primo media outlets like National Urban Radio.
Does any one believe this feetsbawl strike ploy? Maybe messy I uhhhh Be Wacky can save the day!
It took A fake BC and a war with Libya and several other uhFrekin tribes to cover Ricky and Racky's Rears over the gunrunner SCAM!
The footB scandal is just another foolaide dispenser holdout till withdrawals set in.
July 13, 2011 - 12:32PM
CARNEY BRIEFS: “Entitlement savings are absolutely something that we will continue to look at” in the deficit negotiations, White House press secretary Jay Carney says.
Carney says he’ll take one more question (just as the U.S. women’s soccer team nears the end of its victorious World Cup game against France). It’s on the deficit, and why most Americans don’t want the debt limit to be raised.
“We have focused not on laying out the consequences of default because we believe and take leaders in Congress at their word that action will be taken to prevent that from happening,” he says. “It’s easy to understand why most Americans don’t have a lot of time to focus on what is a debt ceiling.”
He then says the press corps didn’t even know until recently: “I mean, honestly, did anyone in this room, before they had to cover issues like this, have any idea what a debt ceiling was?”
And that’s it. (1:51 p.m.)
The deficit and more, after the jump ...
.
QUESTION TIME — Our questions for Jay Carney:
Has the president spoken with Mitch McConnell about his plan to give the president the power to raise the debt ceiling without spending cuts?
Did the president talk about the debt limit with the CEOs who had lunch with him at the White House yesterday?
When did the president know the total figures of his campaign haul for the first quarter? What was his reaction to the $86 million donated?
FROM THE TOP — White House press secretary Jay Carney begins his briefing by reading a statement from President Obama condemning the attacks in Mumbai. The United States “continues to monitor” what’s happening, Carney says. “The American people will stand with the Indian people,” he says, still reading Obama’s statement.
Another announcement: Obama spoke with President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan this morning to “express his condolences” over the murder of his brother, Carney says. On to questions. (12:56 p.m.)
First one is a follow-up on the Mumbai attack; Carney says he doesn’t have information on who was behind it.
The White House budget office is looking at Mitch McConnell’s budget proposal, Carney says, as he calls the plan an “acknowledgment” that the debt ceiling must be raised.
Then Carney calls the possibility of a deficit deal a chance for a “game change.” (12:57 p.m.)
White House press secretary Jay Carney stresses that the administration hasn’t endorsed Mitch McConnell’s deficit plan that would give President Obama the power to raise the debt limit without spending cuts.
Carney calls the proposal a “fall-back, back-up option.” (1:00 p.m.)
But then Carney says that “there’s no Plan B” on a default, and he says that preparations for what would happen in case of a default doesn’t amount to such a thing.
More on a default: “That’s all hypothetical, and we don’t believe that it will happen.”
“We have made clear in the negotiations ... what we are willing to do, and significant compromises the president is willing to make,” Carney says. (1:05 p.m.)
Here’s another metaphor White House press secretary Jay Carney is using on the deficit talks: “Everybody gets in the boat together, at one time, so we don’t tip over.”
In response to a partial narrative of the debt negotiations by Jake Tapper, Carney whips out some more metaphors. “That is just a false moving of the chains here,” he says. “You’ve got to compare apples to apples.” (1:08 p.m.)
(”Kicking the can down the road” comes along a little later.) (1:11 p.m.)
White House press secretary Jay Carney continues to make the case for the “biggest possible deal” on the deficit: “None of this will be easy. All of this will be hard.”
Carney, who has refused to give details of the deficit talks to reporters for days, mocks a reporter for suggesting that she knows what’s going on behind closed doors. He then says, vaguely, “We remain confident that we will get an agreement.” (1:13 p.m.)
President Obama is “absolutely puishing for the biggest deal possible,” White House press secretary Jay Carney says.
Carney then defends the White House’s decision not to let reporters ask Obama questions at the beginning of the deficit negotiations later today. He says proudly that the White House allowed TV cameras into the room just after Obama had a press conference, and “people shouted questions at him.”
And Carney notes that Obama had a press conference within two weeks of his last press conference! “Are you telling us we can’t ask questions?” a reporter asks. In response, Carney says again that Obama took questions for 40 minutes shortly after taking questions for 70 minutes. “The president will certainly take questions again, but ... they have work to do,” he says.
“We’re just going to do a photo spray today,” he says. (1:18 p.m.)
White House press secretary Jay Carney talks a bit about “doing what’s right” in Washington and says “the leaders need to lead.”
Asked if the deficit negotiating group could be expanded, Carney says: “It’s important to recognize that anything that’s going to be passed by Congress needs to have been worked through with and hopefully sanctioned by the leaders of Congress in both parties. That’s the optimum situation. So, no, we don’t have any regrets about bringing in the leaders of Congress from both parties into these negotiations.”
He says there are also staff discussions and “side-bar” conversations with other members of Congress. (1:22 p.m.)
White House press secretary Jay Carney won’t respond to a reporter who asks if President Obama’s threat on Social Security checks was a scare tactic. Carney tells his press corps to look at the transcript of Obama’s interview with CBS to see what he said (they’ve probably all read it).
“The president was asked a question, and he answered it honestly,” Carney says. “Our position, the president’s position, has always been that we will not get to that point because Congress will do the right thing.” (1:24 p.m.)
Jay Carney goes on defense again over not allowing reporters to ask President Obama questions today. “We’re not taking questions today,” the White House press secretary says. “He may tomorrow.”
Allowing just photographers into the room “is not unprecedented,” Carney says. He adds, “We’ve done still sprays in a lot of meetings.”
“I used to be where you are, and I used to ask questions,” the former journalist reminds his press corps. (1:29 p.m.)
We’re losing count, but White House press secretary Jay Carney just cited Ronald Reagan at his daily briefing again. Talking about compromise, Carney says Reagan “didn’t get everything he wanted” and that he even raised taxes. “That’s the kind of compromise we’re talking about,” Carney says, then referring to the old Clinton-Gingrich talks.
Asked if the White House will pry open the secret deficit talks to the public, Carney says, perhaps a little jokingly: “Well, we might — perhaps. Perhaps. You know, I think that, you know as well as I do that these are — this is difficult.” (1:35 p.m.)
Carney stays opaque when he’s asked about what has been agreed upon in the debt talks: “More than a little and less than a lot.” He smiles. (1:37 p.m.)
Topic change: Will Obama go to Russia this year? Carney says he has no announcements about that. (1:38 p.m.)
Back to the debt: White House press secretary Jay Carney cites “seniors” and “disabled kids” in asking rich people to “sacrifice” as part of a deficit deal.
“We want to make it fair and balanced, and we want to make it significant,” Carney says, borrowing the motto of Fox News. (1:40 p.m.)
White House press secretary Jay Carney says President Obama has been fighting for a big deficit deal. “He’s the one out there saying, ‘Let’s get the biggest possible deal, and that big possible deal includes” cuts in discretionary spending, the defense budget, entitlements and the tax code, Carney says.
Carney is asked about the developing news out of Britain involving Rupert Murdoch and the News of the World phone hacking — is it on the White House’s radar? The reply:
“It’s not on our radar in the sense that we’re having discussions about it. Everybody reads newspapers. ... So we’re aware of it, but it’s not — we have some other issues we’re dealing with.” (1:45 p.m.)
Asked about gay rights, Carney says Obama doesn’t have a “magic wand” to change things, and that there are processes for such things.
And back to the deficit: “The president believes that we do not need to amend the Constitution” to deal with the debt. (1:47 p.m.)
July 13, 2011 - 12:01PM
NORTH BOUND: President Obama will go to Minnesota, the home state of two GOP presidential candidates, in late August to talk to veterans at an American Legion convention.
The White House announced Wednesday that Obama has accepted an invitation from American Legion National Commander Jimmie L. Foster to speak at the event in Minneapolis on Aug. 30.
“It is always an honor to welcome the commander-in-chief at our national convention, but it is more meaningful than ever this year, as we look back on recent progress regarding the compassionate care of our nation’s wounded warriors, veterans, and the families who care for them, and as we look forward to challenges and opportunities alike for the Department of Veterans Affairs,” Foster said in a press release.
Rep. Michele Bachmann and former Gov. Tim Pawlenty, both from Minnesota, are top-tier candidates for the Republican nomination for president..
http://www.politico.com/politico44/wbarchive/whiteboard07132011.html
David Gregory shouted at Bush during WH news conferences. Not when he was on a tarmac, where everyone shouts. Obama is a big baby! And yes I caught the sarcasm in your post. ;)
Typical fascist.
Recently? Is anyone other than a blog reporting that LTC Allen West called for Holder to be removed from office?
Yes, but there is a big difference: Bush was ‘selected’; Obama is ‘elected’.
(I guess if I don’t put a sarc tag on this one, I’ll be zotted. ;)
“Obama is a big baby!”
Man alive, is he ever. I thought Bill Clinton acted immaturely, but at least it was like a (hormone-ridden) teen. Obama acts like a six-yo. A spoiled, self-centered, thin-skinned, uber-bratty cry-baby 6 yo. He needs psychotherapy—a decade’s worth of it, in a closed facility.
“...He then says the press corps didn’t even know until recently: “I mean, honestly, did anyone in this room, before they had to cover issues like this, have any idea what a debt ceiling was?””
Funny...remember how the press ran on and on about President Bush’s lack of ‘curiousity’ about the ‘world’,etc. That was part of their ‘unintellectual’ charge against him..yet...the media in this country have got to be the most nescient folks on the planet!!
Actually the LA Times is reporting stuff I am finding first on the guys blogs who broke this story.
I am having trouble posting one site here because FR only wants it in the Bloggers section - even though they are breaking info on the story.
here is an example of the LA Times reporting
First
http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/2011/07/breaking-grassley-issa-name-holders.html
next day
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-guns-documents-20110713,0,1830564.story
So you see, the mainstream media is slowly coming to the forefront.
Every so often, the state run, obama butt-sucking media needs to be reminded who it`s lord and master is.
Can they throw shoes?
“It’s an absurd reason to say that because we asked questions you’re not going to allow cameras in there. He’s capable of ignoring our questions. He does it all the time,” said Chip Reid of CBS.
UH, OH, do I sense trouble in Paradise?
Okay, it’s very funny. Otoh, it makes Obama looks masculine, and he’s not. He is a wimpy, effete man who excels in playing the race card, cheating, and getting on the inside of dirty Chicago politics. Put him in a room with an even semi-real man, and tell them to duke it out for five minutes, and Obama would wet himself. Or even just give him one day without fawning, sycophantic knee-pad media coverage, and he’d wilt like a violet.
What an embarrassment he is.
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