The politics of fear

[YardleyLabs]

Yes the press conference was obviously staged. The reporters allowed to ask questions were selected beforehand and asked to provide the question(s) they wanted to ask in advance, so the staff could prepare answers for their leader. I suspect most of his press conferences will be more of the same. Would it be better if Obomo was unprepared? My opinion is, given how woefully unprepared this man is to hold any office, probably not; his 'off the cuff' remarks have done nothing to inspire confidence in him as he appears petulant and buffoonish when he's questioned off script.

As for certain media being ignored, White House press staff do try to avoid reporters they know will make their man look bad. That's their job. But at some point the President has to be able to answer questions with some degree of knowlege, even ones that aren't supplied in advance. This president has not shown even a basic grasp of the subject matter at hand (what's in the stimulus package).

Do you have a legitimate reference for asserting that the questions were provided in advance? Obama has pre-designated the reporters whose questions will be answered at each of his press conferences since the election and has notified those selected. I have not heard of any effort to obtain their questions in advance. I'm not sure why the pre-selection has been done. In each case, reporters from every major network and news services have been selected along with various representatives from on-line and print media. Every President has exercised selectivity in deciding which reporters to call on during conferences and I'm sure that Obama has done the same. However, that apparently did not include ignoring Fox News in this last conference.

I thought it looked very clumsy when he was obviously reading reporters' names from a list. However, I wondered if this was because he simply doesn't yet know/recognize most of the White House reporters. Asking questions to be submitted in advance for screening would clearly be a big deal and one I hope the reporters would refuse to do and would report loudly to the public. My impression was that most of the questions asked were obvious and I would have been stunned if he were not prepared to answer them completely.

[Julie R.]

Well let's see Jeff, I worked in the press office of the Reagan White House and the U.S. State Dept., so I've been one of those staffers preparing rsponses or "Qs and As" as they used to be called. So, yes I have some knowlege of how these things work. In the case of Obomo I happen to have a friend whose daughter works in the press office and it's pretty common knowlege that the reporters called on also submitted their questions in advance. Yes Obomo's briefed by his staff on various subjects but they do not allow him to go on national TV 'off the cuff'. So yes, there's little doubt in this case, he did know all the questions before they were asked.

And as for this

Obama has pre-designated the reporters whose questions will be answered at each of his press conferences since the election and has notified those selected. I have not heard of any effort to obtain their questions in advance.

Exactly how do you think these reporters get selected? Because they're willing to supply their questions in advance and/or can be counted on to consistently agree with and promote the presidential agenda.

[JDogger]

So Julie, you're saying every WH press conference since Reagan has been staged? Then why single out Obama for criticism?

JD

Well let's see Jeff, I worked in the press office of the Reagan White House and the U.S. State Dept., so I've been one of those staffers preparing rsponses or "Qs and As" as they used to be called. So, yes I have some knowlege of how these things work. In the case of Obomo I happen to have a friend whose daughter works in the press office and it's pretty common knowlege that the reporters called on also submitted their questions in advance. Yes Obomo's briefed by his staff on various subjects but they do not allow him to go on national TV 'off the cuff'. So yes, there's little doubt in this case, he did know all the questions before they were asked.

And as for this
Exactly how do you think these reporters get selected? Because they're willing to supply their questions in advance and/or can be counted on to consistently agree with and promote the presidential agenda.

[txbadger]

Haven't read but a couple of posts so if "Gitmo's been closed.." error was corrected forgive me for reposting. It's open and we'll now use rendition to grill the bad guys, aka share the information with whomever will do our dirty work. The review window is 1 year and then Our leader will decide what to do with the bad guys living there.

As to the Pork package, people need to review history and see how well the last "deal" worked out for FDR.....

[Eric Johnson]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123431418276770899.html

Obama's Press List
Membership shall have its privileges

About half-way through President Obama's press conference Monday night, he had an unscripted question of his own. "All, Chuck Todd," the President said, referring to NBC's White House correspondent. "Where's Chuck?" He had the same strange question about Fox News's Major Garrett: "Where's Major?"

-more-

[backpasture]

So Julie, you're saying every WH press conference since Reagan has been staged? Then why single out Obama for criticism?

JD

Because apparently the Republican punditry needs something to be OUTRAGED about. They're not even shy about the hypocrisy of it all.

The claim Julie makes about the questions being submitted in advance is complete BS, though. Who here thinks Fox News (which was called on) would not be having a field day with this if they had been asked to submit their questions in advance?

Glenn Greenwald did a nice job responding to the WSJ article:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/02/12/wsj/

[Losthwy]

Well let's see Jeff, I worked in the press office of the Reagan White House and the U.S. State Dept\
....Obomo
.... Obomo's .

I'm impressed, did that job include basterarizing names? Was that a job skill listed on your resume? And should future Obama press office officials, much like yourself, refer to other ex-presidents as Ronald Ruin, George Tush, etc.?
Questions all in the interest of being "fair and balanced".

[Andy Symons]

Can someone on the left please explain to me what the Democratic Congress was doing while Bush caused this so called "catasrophe". Last time I checked the Constitution, the powers of the Oval Office are somewhat limited.

No "basterarizing" here I don't think.

Definitional challenged regards,

[K G]

No "basterarizing" here I don't think.

Now THAT was funny!

kg

[JDogger]

No "basterarizing" here I don't think.

Definitional challenged regards,

Just a way of getting around the word censor. Like baskird. You do realize that, right?

JD