I was going to close shop for vacation, but this story is way too much fun – especially as we are dealing with a former House manager demanding impeachment over Lewinsky
So, here goes the Daily News:
On to a good governor, Newsday has one of the few pro-Paterson headlines in the media (remember, the Kennedy vendetta is still on)
..
Not sure what the implication of this is. I am packing for 2 weeks vacation and just made my own loldog
See you in 2 weeks – hopefully with some relevant commentary
I am old enough to remember the staged question at a Bush/Gore debate in 2000: “when you laughed about an execution the last debate you didn’t mean to sound callous, did you?”
W wasn’t as dependent on TOTUS but he was calling his stooges in the wrong order – or was reading out loud stage directions at press conferences. And who can forget Jeff Gannon?
But now that we finally have the 11 dimensional chess player in the White House – shouldn’t he be able to answer unprepared question from his otherwise supine media?
Politico - which had been left to starve for attention lately – tells us the story:
In what appeared to be a coordinated exchange, President Obama called on the Huffington Post’s Nico Pitney near the start of his press conference and requested a question directly about Iran.
“Nico, I know you and all across the Internet, we’ve been seeing a lot of reports coming out of Iran,” Obama said, addressing Pitney. “I know there may actually be questions from people in Iran who are communicating through the Internet. Do you have a question?”
Pitney, as if ignoring what Obama had just said, said: “I wanted to use this opportunity to ask you a question directly from an Iranian.”
Oh, come on guys! You had your phone conference ahead of time – you could have used a little bit of rehearsal. Rules are simple – Obama names a “random” reporter, the preset question is asked. Obama shouldn’t have to foreshadow the question – or if he did, reporter should just follow up. Get it? All this could have been set in that conversation
“Huffington Post’s Nico Pitney says the WH called him this morning and invited him to ask his Iran questions at the news conference.”
One Politico reader comments
At least someone can see through all this transparency.
Update
I see Dana Milbank at WaPo too on this story as well, and with a fetching title no less
Millbank seems to have been in the room and ads some personal impressions
Pitney asked his arranged question. Reporters looked at one another in amazement at the stagecraft they were witnessing. White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel grinned at the surprised TV correspondents in the first row.
To which I wonder: why were the reporters amazed again? haven’t they seen all this with W? Haven’t they perpetuated and enhanced it since the establishment decided Jr.jr was to be “elected”?
Millbank notices the obvious
The use of planted questioners is a no-no at presidential news conferences, because it sends a message to the world — Iran included — that the American press isn’t as free as advertised. But yesterday wasn’t so much a news conference as it was a taping of a new daytime drama, “The Obama Show.”
Indeed, considering that the press conference was called for some stern lecturing to Iran, the irony is thick.
And I am confused about the “but”. Was some entertainment value Millbank perceived that somewhat stood for the free press? Or rather he made the point that there was no press there at all, just impersonators?
Because in that case, the question would be – where is the free press?
And considering other pre-arranged questions we find out, it makes one wonder if any of the questions were spontaneous
he was not the only prearranged questioner at yesterday’s show. Later, Obama passed over the usual suspects to call on Macarena Vidal of the Spanish-language EFE news agency. The White House called Vidal in advance to see whether she was coming and arranged for her to sit in a seat usually assigned to a financial trade publication. She asked about Chile and Colombia.
As is the clue Millbank provides for Politico’s first coverage of this
“Mr. President!” yelled Mike Allen of Politico. “May I ask about Afghanistan? No questions about Iraq or Afghanistan?”Sorry: Those weren’t prearranged.
Good point. And no, Dana – it’s not Days of Our Lives. It’s propaganda. Any entertainment value you may have experienced, it can only come from the MSM nostalgia for the days when they were actually reporting stuff.
Believe me, we are not amused.
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It was meant to be discreet, like W’s nod to the “Left Behind” Rapture nuts with the name of the legislation undermining public education. A male to male nod from Obama – but Catholics decided to run and make a headline out of it
President Obama Acknowledges Fatherhood Begins at Conception.
In their defense, it was an unmistakable wink and nod to his “secret base“
In the Parade Magazine interview he told the interviewer: “…we need fathers to step up, to realize that their job does not end at conception;
and
We need fathers to understand that their work doesn’t end with conception — that what truly makes a man a father is the ability to raise a child and invest in that child.”
(emphasis theirs)
And then, helpfully take the wink to the next logical implication
What is implicit, actually what is explicit, is that President Obama, in emphasizing the ongoing obligations of fatherhood, also acknowledged that Fatherhood begins at conception. Such an admission brings with it an extraordinary implication; every intentional abortion constitutes the killing of some father’s son or daughter.
Surely, one talking about fatherhood, would need to go there – but using that trigger word is about as innocent as lipstick on a pig.
And it’s not so farfetched from the man that didn’t even ask his SCOTUS pick her views on abortion
and declared FOCA not a priority, and choice not a freedom.
I can only hope that the new leadership of NOW notices the pattern in those ‘little things” and no longer lies down and takes it. Maybe some day, women will demand respect with the same strong voice our LGBT allies are.
Speaking of which, it just struck me as the opposite attitude Obama has towards them
And how is the White House showing their pride in the legacy of Stonewall? By keeping it on the down-low of course.
The White House has not publicized the reception, and officials did not respond to e-mail requests for comment.
In other words, he pretends to shun fundies, but winks and nods at them and stirs legislation/lack of it their way, while he pretends to be into LGBT, but without outwards signs as every effort is made to keep discrimination firmly in place.
And just for a nice note – since my kid is graduating elementary school today and this is a graduation story
a very grown-up dissertation on the increasingly inter-connected, inter-dependent world that today’s young people will soon inherit.” He also emphasized their education, “Critical thinking will never go out of style. .
I was away from the Father’s Day mediagasm – busy as I was celebrating Summer Solstice and helping my kid with her Father Day offerings.
So, when the smoke cleared, all I saw was this amazing leftover in SF Gate
n this Father’s Day, the American public should proudly note that our president takes his personal role as father (and spouse) as seriously as he does his job as father of the country.
Oh, I didn’t forget how Rove & gang used to tell us about W knowing better than us what we need and W that he doesn’t need to explain his decisions. The Patriarchy was quite explicit then too.
But at least in the media – supine as it was – we didn’t get W’s slogans as headlines
Nor did we get told that W – or anyone else since Washington – was Father of the Country…
The outright piece of propaganda lists point by point the amazing exemplary things Obama does as a father then sticking its finger in our eye
Come next Father’s Day, our banking crisis might not be wholly resolved, the auto industry might not be on its feet again, and health care coverage might not be fully available to the uninsured. But we can only hope that fathers and spouses everywhere will be thinking “What Would Obama Do?” as they navigate through the murky waters of parenthood and family life.
Hey, propaganda lady – if those economic crisis will not be solved by next father day, how will all those lecture fathers put food on their families – as W would say?
But the father propaganda is important to Daddy Issues Obama – so Axelrod muscled out another editorial from Parade Magazine to share his letter to his daughters with the masses. Because children always love being on display! It usually invites kindness from people like Letterman and Maher but not when your daddy swats flies like the destiny itself …
Here’s a blatant example of how crooks cover for each other as they resent the light of day on their actions. Jr.jr promised – a lot – transparency.
Instead, not only do they refuse to give the list of their own guests at the White House, but they extend the protective mantle of secrecy to the criminals before them.
Obama’s DOJ (as Gibbs declared it) has some interesting arguments for why they can’t release Cheney’s documents:
“If we become a fact-finder for political enemies, they aren’t going to cooperate,” Justice Department attorney Jeffrey Smith said during a 90-minute hearing. “I don’t want a future vice president to say, ‘I’m not going to cooperate with you because I don’t want to be fodder for ‘The Daily Show.’”
Or, more likely, if the other party takes power, will they out us too, expose to ridicule?
We can’t have that! You peons can’t know what us the powerful are doing – let alone laugh at us.
And there you have it – the brotherhood of the powerful against the powerless, not even bothering to conceal it.
because as we all now, satire is the weapon of the powerless against the powerful – and the hope and change administration would not allow any weapon in our hands.
This reminds me of an interesting frame of mind Antonin Scalia revealed in a speech at Princeton University in 2001 – shortly after twisting an election:
Maybe sometimes, the Constitution is designed to protect us from the will of the people”
And here we have some follow up on that “us”…
Update
The same isn’t true of us, pawns. We can be laughed at freely. Whether is failing industries, underlings or the audience – free fodder. Go to Cinie for a good comment on tha
As the media keeps harping on the Obama era, I have been trying to figure out a defining feature – besides “Jr.jr”.
I found this news on Political Wire
…
In the wake of Sen. John McCain’s loss in the presidential election, “many political analysts said Lieberman was done. Defying the pundits yet again, Lieberman survived a major effort to take away his Homeland Security Committee chairmanship. And his political stock has spiked.”
And there’s one comment which best sums it up:
This is a greater reflection on Obama’s leadership, rather than Liebermans.
Indeed. How did courageous Bush critics fares? Let’s see:
Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame – told to STFU
Paul Krugman seems to have been coopted in the process of Wooing the Gray Lady
having already given face-time to Paul Krugman, Frank Rich, David Brooks and Maureen Dowd.
Dan Froomkin from WaPo was fired. Laments Greenwald:
what one finds virtually nowhere in the establishment press are those who criticize Obama not in order to advance their tawdry right-wing agenda but because the principles that led them to criticize Bush compel similar criticism of Obama.
For those who missed the count, this is the guy who joined WRWC against Clinton expressing ‘indignation” in the senate, betrayed Gore, selling the election by demanding phony military ballots to be counted, sponsored (with Edwards0 the IWR, supported every neocon excess during Bush, was reelected with Cheney’s and the GOP help by running against the Dem candidate (DNC helped too) and for the finishing touch endorsed McCain.
So, yeah, that someone like Lieberman (Obama’s mentor, BTW) flourishes in these times, is a reflection on Obama, more than it is on Lieberman.
Eaten by Ray’s hellburger by Dan Lacey (h/t Cinie)
Fresh on the hills of the CNN reporter deamily wondering about the Presidential Lunch, comes MoDo’s magnificent obsession with what Obama eats and how it impacts our commoners life – basically, it’s all PR – but is it the right PR?
Even as he grows arugula in the White House vegetable garden, Barack Obama never again wants to be seen as the hoity-toity guy fretting over the price of arugula at Whole Foods.
That is why the president ends up sending mixed signals on food.
Comments the New Editor
Ms. Dowd, like a good portion of the New York-Washington political and media nexus, thinks the public is an idiot, and that it hangs on every action, every word of its spokesman, the new president, as if it were some divine guidance for how to live its life.
What a bunch of self-absorbed jerks.
Let it be not said that the Obama paper of record doesn’t have some real news as well. There’s an interesting headline on a poll
In Poll, Obama Is Seen as Ineffective on the Economy
followed by an article so twisted in equivocation that one needs to return to the headline again and again to remember what this is about
A substantial majority of Americans say President Obama has not developed a strategy to deal with the budget deficit, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll, which also found that support for his plans to overhaul health care, rescue the auto industry and close the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, falls well below his job approval ratings
The numbers are never revealed – we don’t know yet what a substantial majority is, but the gist is – we love the way he’s doing his job, we just don’t agree with anything he’s doing
Such as, maybe, trying to take credit for maintainng status quo, while pretending to help gay rights
Or as the WORM paper of record puts it
Mr. Obama said the memorandum — which represents his interpretation of existing law — represented just a start
Umm…if the law was existing, why the fanfare, complete with photo-op signing illustrating the article?…..
To keep up, I’ll have to complete the media’s obsession with Teh One’s digestive functions with a Mr Fish cartoon
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CNN breathlessly breaks the news, complete with video
Oops! President Obama confuses right, left
You’d think it’s about the famous postpartisanship era, but then again – this is CNN
President Obama is so busy these days dealing with pressing foreign policy issues like Iran and North Korea, that he can’t seem to tell his right from his left.
Huh? “So busy”?
So it gows, complete with video a whole article fawning over this so very endearing “oops”
And it’s not as if they don’t know better
That oops moment alone wouldn’t have deserved a write-up, but for the fact that there was more confusion after the press availability.
The reporter ends by fantasizing about how awesome the Presidential lunch must be
They are now having lunch in the Old Family Dining Room. I presume the president will use the right fork.
Aw, you little rascal!
It’s the actual news they are annoyed with and they report with disdain.
Meanwhile, in the real word, the right and so called “left” conspire against we the people
Dem, GOP centrists meet in secret
Members of the centrist GOP “Tuesday Group,” the New Democrat Coalition and the 52-member Blue Dog Coalition have been discussing both the policies and politics of moving their middle-of-the-road ideas in a body of Congress usually dominated by liberal or conservative ideology.
Why the secrecy?
Noting that some members could be retaliated against by their leaders, some lawmakers declined to mention to whom they were talking. Rep. Patrick Tiberi (R-Ohio) said that he wouldn’t “throw (Blue Dogs) under the bus” by revealing the identities of his Democratic colleagues.
What would they have to talk about?
Those centrist factions are wary of the proposals their respective leaders will introduce this month. Blue Dogs are leery of the so-called public option in the healthcare reform bill that is expected to hit the House floor this summer
And now we go full circle to the CNN piece, only without “oops”
Both Castle and Tiberi were part of a small group of Republicans that visited the White House earlier this year to discuss areas of compromise on healthcare reform with President Obama and his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel.
According to Tiberi, the president and Emanuel said they want bipartisan support and “are open to new ideas.” The centrist GOP members said they told Obama and Emanuel that they have ideas but that Democratic leaders in the House won’t listen.
Indeed, so very busy, he forgets sometimes…
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On the misogyny front, even as Letterman gets to deliver a real apology (an advertiser left CBS), Bill Maher jumps into the fray adding his very special brand of patronizing of women that endeared him to boys of all ages for so many years
In defending his friend, Maher thought Republicans had over reacted and this was just a case of ‘fake’ outrage. Much ado about nothing. He then went on talking about how Letterman had invited Sarah Palin and her young daughter, Willow, to appear as guests on his show but the Governor declined because she thought it would be wise to keep her daughter away from him. Said Maher, “…that’s right, he’s 62 years old, he’s gonna fuck her right there on stage…it would be very wise to keep her, very wise, yes. You know, I’d worry a little more about the 18-year old hockey players who knock up your daughters.”
Oh, Bill, just as you woke up a bit from your koolaid stupor over the Misogynist in Chief, you had to remind us why as you say in that piece are “still a fan”
So, according to TV Guide a protest is being organized against Letterman today
Leahy, who also helped organize the anti-tax “tea parties” in cities across the country earlier this year, estimated anywhere from 50 to 300 people would attend a protest planned outside Letterman’s studio in New York City on Tuesday.
What about Maher? Will “it’s not TV, it’s HBO” thingy protect him?
And as Breibart remarks
According to Bill Maher, these jokes are ‘harmless.’ Women of NOW are you listening?
The other healthy dose of irony today comes from the story of Obama’s hemming and hawing over how to react to Iran’s stolen election. Politico informs us about Obama’s hand being forced (such a leader, that one!)
Echoing the words of the Brookings Institute guy, Obama mostly adopted a Greta Garbo stance
“We respect Iranian sovereignty and want to avoid the United States being the issue inside of Iran,” he said.
I can see why a president installed via dubious vote count finds the subject uncomfortable.
But I bet you won’t guess who else is suddenly outraged about election theft
One particularly funny turn is the GOP’s righteous indignation
“The administration’s silence in the face of Iran’s brutal suppression of democratic rights represents a step backwards for homegrown democracy in the Middle East,” said House GOP whip Eric Cantor of Virginia.
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