Obama and the Press
| Tue Jun. 23, 2009 4:56 PM PDT
Walter Shapiro, after watching Barack Obama reply sharply to a couple of questions at today's press conference, offers up a theory:
In response to the next question — about the potential consequences if Iran continued to suppress demonstrations — Obama said with a sharp edge in his voice, "We don't know yet how this thing is going to play out. I know everybody here is on a 24-hour news cycle. I'm not. Okay?"
Now I am not going to claim that the First Amendment requires presidents always to wear smiley faces when taking questions from reporters. Nor am I going to deny that occasionally — very occasionally — the short-term mindset of the press pack can be irritating for presidents with a more transcendent view of global events.Instead, I am bringing this up because I want to tentatively advance a larger theory about the president's public moods. Obama tends to drop his cool veneer and sound exasperated when he knows that he is in the wrong.
Hmmm. I suppose there might be something to this, but I have a different theory: the press only really gets disturbed by Obama's occasional acid tongue when it's aimed at the press. On a later question about Obama's struggle to quit smoking, Shapiro says, "Words alone cannot convey Obama's mocking tone and his obvious disdain for this 'human-interest story,'" but I watched that part of the press conference and it seemed like a pretty mild dig to me. You can judge for yourself above.
There's a convention in American politics that says politicians can manipulate the press behind the scenes as much as they like, and for the most part no grumbling is allowed. It's all part of the game. On camera, the rules are supposed to be same: the president is expected to pretend that every reporter is serious and well-briefed and every question is smart and penetrating. But Obama doesn't always like to play by those rules. He's occasionally willing to pull back the curtain on the media's inanity and to call a dumb question a dumb question. Unsurprisingly, reporters don't like this much.
Shapiro headlined his post, "Pushing the President's Buttons." But I think it might have been the other way around: the president was pushing his.
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Comments
Let's not forget
Submitted by wovenstrap on Tue Jun. 23, 2009 6:27 PM PDT.
... that getting past the 24 hour news cycle is precisely the kind of thing the people who voted for him were hoping he would do. It's not just idiosyncrasy. It's practically an election promise. But the reporters thought they were exempt, or that he'd become one of them just like all the others. Never forget how loathed the media is.
I was cheering as Obama
Submitted by jimBOB on Tue Jun. 23, 2009 7:04 PM PDT.
I was cheering as Obama treated contemptible questions with open contempt. It's about damn time.
Journalists believe
Submitted by Paul Camp (not verified) on Tue Jun. 23, 2009 7:26 PM PDT.
that these ARE smart and penetrating questions. It never crosses their minds that there could be moving amongst them. . . ummm ... "bears of very little brain."
I may not be good politics:
Submitted by BigTom (not verified) on Tue Jun. 23, 2009 7:48 PM PDT.
but I feel exactly as JimBob. I wouldn't make a dipolmatic politician, as I would call stupidity, as stupidity. Its about time the people peddling this idiotic BS get treated with the contempt they deserve.
The Republican position on
Submitted by Rich in NJ (not verified) on Tue Jun. 23, 2009 7:57 PM PDT.
The Republican position on Iran makes as little sense as a spending freeze during a recession. What reasonable person wouldn't become exasperated when members of the press want him to take their fatuous nonsense seriously?
While I'm sympathetic to his
Submitted by AlanW (not verified) on Tue Jun. 23, 2009 8:02 PM PDT.
While I'm sympathetic to his disgruntlement over the dumbass questions, I think Obama may have sold his soul on this one with junk like the Inside the White House special and the hoopla over the family dog. He's perfectly willing to play up the human interest angle and pander to the press' worst instincts when it suits him, so it ill behooves him to get peevish when those questions keep coming.
Actually, asking "what can
Submitted by SSJPabs (not verified) on Tue Jun. 23, 2009 8:31 PM PDT.
Actually, asking "what can we do if the Regime wins" is a legitimate question because a regime win means just about ANYONE who is a moderate will be in prison or dead and the hardliners are going to be ruling by force alone.
Can we really strike a deal with a regime like that? I don't mean morally, I mean are they even stable enough to strike a deal with? And are they going to even want to no matter what the cost since it's going to 100% hardliners? It is clear Obama does not want to answer this in public.
why can't you be more like W?
Submitted by junebug on Tue Jun. 23, 2009 9:04 PM PDT.
"When it comes to Iran, Obama has at times spoken in particularly mealy mouthed fashion because he is fearful (as he has repeatedly explained) that his words could be hijacked by the Iranian theocrats. Even during Tuesday's press conference, Obama ducked condemning the Iranian election as totally fraudulent by carefully saying, "We didn't have international observers on the ground. We can't say definitely what happened at polling places throughout the country." Obama – who more than most leaders understands the power of inspirational rhetoric – has been forced to keep his most potent weapon (his moral outrage) sheathed through most of the Iranian crisis."
Um, it bears emphasizing that we *didn't* have international observers on the ground, and we *don't* have definitive explanations for what happened in voting booths across Iran. As Yglesias noted some time last week, it's all well & good for pundits & bloggers to wax theoretical about the various ways in which the regime stole the election, but it simply isn't appropriate for heads of state to go around leveling these kinds of charges having some kind of a) verification of said fraud, and b) larger policy goal that this kind of charge serves. Name-calling & refusing to acknowledge the people you don't like is so 2003. Nevermind the fact that the protesters in Iran weren't lacking inspiration, but even if they were (and actually, *especially* if they were), it's disgusting that some people have crafted a role that has them encouraging other people to put their lives on the line. If Krauthammer, Wolfowitz, and the entire NRO crew think this is something worth fighting for, they should put their money where their collective mouth is. Like those on the American left who traveled to Spain in the '30s in an effort to fight Franco, they can put some of their own skin in the game. Anyway, I have no idea why anybody thinks they deserve a response. They're still covered in the disgrace of their cheerleading for the invasion of Iraq. And Schapiro is just another in the long line of conservative pundits who seem to believe that Obama's greatest shortcomings is the fact that he has the audacity to conduct a foreign policy different from that of his predecessor. That worked out so well for us.
They are not theories --
Submitted by Nohochmac (not verified) on Tue Jun. 23, 2009 9:18 PM PDT.
They are not theories -- they are hypothesis. A theory can be proven. I know that this has gotten very sloppy, but please don't add to the confusion. Otherwise you might have senators claim that they don't believe in theories, as if they have a choice. I suggest that they take a step off of a high building to test the theory of gravity...
hy·poth·e·sis n
1. a tentative explanation for a phenomenon, used as a basis for further investigation
2. a statement that is assumed to be true for the sake of argument
3. the antecedent of a conditional statement
Great post, Kevin. You
Submitted by JMF (not verified) on Tue Jun. 23, 2009 10:29 PM PDT.
Great post, Kevin. You nailed it.
Yes, I Saw Richly Deserved Contempt,
Submitted by bob h (not verified) on Wed Jun. 24, 2009 3:52 AM PDT.
not anger, in Obama's exchanges. Just because you called on HuffPost does not mean you have to call on the insolent troglodytes at Fox, does it? Why not give "Major" Garret, and Jake Tapper a miss in the future in the interest of a more civil atmosphere?
Go Obama!
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed Jun. 24, 2009 8:18 AM PDT.
I was saddened and dismayed that a white house reporter would ask the POTUS about how much he still smokes. I mean, they get ONE question, and she wants to waste it on this crap. WHO CARES? Besides, there us already planty of information about his struggle with the habit out there. Aren't these repoorter in the business of making news, not rehashing trivial information already out there in a near-blatant attempt to humiliate him. Obama had every reason to be annoyed. This is a waste of his time, and the public's time as well.
What a brat
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed Jun. 24, 2009 11:28 AM PDT.
Obama is a snotty, infantile, self-absorbed brat. His mother should have beat his ass a few times and taught him how to behave. But she was just too busy getting her important graduate degree in anthropology to raise her rotten little creep.
Oh well, get used to it. Forty-two more months to go before we can put a grown-up like Mitt Romney into the White House.
Look at the comments there -
Submitted by Kija (not verified) on Wed Jun. 24, 2009 12:51 PM PDT.
Look at the comments there - someone calls Obama "that mulato" and no one even blinks. If that's the readership, who really cares what he thinks, he writes for the United Racists of America.
Obama has again take the
Submitted by Rexan_L on Fri Jun. 26, 2009 1:36 AM PDT.
Obama has again take the opportunity to lay out the steps his administration has taken to rescue the economy from its worst recession in decades at the recent news conference at the White House. President Obama spoke on both his proposals for a public health plan (although nothing concrete was discussed), and also his take on the Iran elections mired in controversy. At the Obama press conference, Iran was one of the dominant issues, and he made it clear that while the dictatorial crackdowns on protesters was condemnable, foreign policy is respecting the sovereignty of Iran. He also acknowledged that a new stimulus package might be pending. Accusations of socialized medicine have circulated, and are unpopular with some people as payday lending is with others, but same day loans and real health care goals weren't discussed at the Obama press conference.
Obama and The Press
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue Jun. 30, 2009 2:53 PM PDT.
It's kind of refreshing when the President can take on the press, or rather when anyone can, and make a fool look like one. Although, that doesn't mean that a president is in the right about everything by sheer virtue of their BEING President. And I'm starting to doubt Obama. Granted, yeah - at a recent press conference he said he would be working on health care, and this that and the other, but I don't think that one is going to pass. Granted, the Senate has a filibuster proof block of Democrats (thanks to Al Franken, perhaps the only Senator who is funny in the laughing WITH sense, the other 100 members - including the VP - are of course hilarious in a laughing AT sense, especially the Vice President. He's beginning to remind me of Dan Quayle...a lot.) but we'll see how the health care reforms do in the House.
Still, Obama has more personality and charisma with the press than most presidents and candidates have. McCain came off as as bit of a pedantic sort of Elmer Fudd, Palin is a rank bumpkin (and her accent makes her sound as if she has an IQ deficiency), but Obama really has the "it" factor. Reminds me a lot of Bill Clinton.
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