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 said. He then added, "The purpose of the meeting is not to create a circus, but to negotiate, so today we're doing stills only."
The White House Correspondents Association has protested exclusion of print and TV from pools and several reporters in the briefing room took Carneys 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.
Carney, a former Time magazine White House reporter, shot back with, I appreciate your opinion.
It didnt end there. Can I ask you to clarify there's no reporters allowed in today's meeting because reporters misbehaved? asked another scribe. Earlier it sounded like you were punishing us.
Carney said he meant no such thing. Look, as you know, we have had different meetings have different levels of access, and we do it on a case-by-case basis. We have had the president has taken questions quite a lot lately, as you know, and so he's not taking questions today. He may tomorrow. Or he may later, you know, but today, we're just doing a still spread, which is not unprecedented. We have done them in a lot of meetings.
"I used to be where you are, and I used to ask questions," the former journalist reminded his press corps.
#1
Obama is so out of place. He is not the man for the times. Now we shall see how bad he can get. We could have a first. I don't recall a sitting president having a nervous breakdown in office. I believe we are nearly there.
#4
I think LBJ had a whole series of nervous breakdowns, just not in front of the press. The man was a wreck.
The press core at these White House briefings used to hound the hell out of Dubya. He was a lot more patient with them than I would have been. Now it's Bummer's turn and he doesn't seem to handling it well. Whoever programs TOTUS should be working a little harder to give him the answers he needs.
#6
There should be a basic decorum in the office of the president. The President sets the tone. If reporters get up and yell stuff, then the president ignores them and answers someone's question with civility.
The president in this case cannot lead. He needs to answer the tough questions, but he needs to show that he is conducting the press conference.
Compare O's methods with that of General Honare or Swartzkopf.
Got to stop being stuck on stupid.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
07/14/2011 14:06 Comments ||
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#9
Shouting out questions is a horrible practice anyway.
The President of the US should answer submitted questions in his weekly address or even better before a session of Congress on a regular basis the way they do in the UK.
#14
The written Questions was the way It done until the Hoover (I think) administration, he once looked over all the questions then Proclaimed in a loud voice
"The only question I care to answer is the one about My re-election" then he talked about a hour.
(There was No question about His re-election)
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
07/14/2011 16:48 Comments ||
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#15
So far there have not been any shoes thrown at O'Bumble. These press conferences are such a farce anyway. There is no useful information coming out of them.
#16
Obama is looking ever more and more like a wanna-be autocrat and dictator. And those sorts of people always end up deserving of a scaffold and rope.
Third down, 5 feet to go, coach calls an end run..... big right tackle takes it down.....
House Republicans on Wednesday voted to strip funding for a new Obama administration policy that increases reporting requirements for some gun dealers who sell semiautomatic rifles.
The rule from the Department of Justice (DOJ) requires dealers to report within five days multiple sales to the same person of semiautomatic rifles with removable magazines.
Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.) sponsored the amendment to the fiscal 2012 Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies appropriations bill that would nix funding for the rule.
"For more than a decade, efforts to track rifle purchases and create a national gun registry have failed to gain support in Congress, so the ATF is working to implement these regulations using rules written by unelected bureaucrats," Rehberg said. "I'm going to keep this government accountable to the people."
Democrats vehemently opposed Rehberg's measure, which was supported by the National Rifle Association (NRA). Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.) said stripping the funding from the rule would be akin to "virtual wholesale slaughter."
"The NRA is so afraid that the people who are really funding the NRA, the gun manufacturers, might lose some sales that we're willing to sacrifice the lives of these people that are casualties of this gun war," Moran said during the markup.
"And we're promoting it. We're enabling ... that slaughter to continue," Moran said.
The new reporting requirement focuses on gun dealers in Southwestern states with close proximity to the Mexico border. It comes amid a push from the Obama administration to strengthen security in the border region.
The issue has received increased attention recently because of a congressional investigation into a controversial gun-tracking operation established by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). Operation Fast and Furious authorized the sale of thousands of weapons in the border region to known and suspected straw purchasers for Mexican drug cartels.
Rehberg's amendment passed with 25 members voting for it and 16 voting against. The measure garnered support from retiring Democratic Rep. Dan Boren (Okla.), who partnered with Rehberg earlier this year to successfully amend H.R. 1 with nearly identical language blocking funds for the heightened reporting requirements from the fiscal 2011 continuing appropriations bill.
That bill later died in the Senate, and Democrats stripped the reporting-requirement provision from a subsequent measure.
The requirement focuses on dealers in Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas. ATF estimated the rules would affect about 8,500 gun dealers in the area.
The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, a leading gun-control group, said the ATF's rifle rule would not put many, if any, new burdens on gun shops. The group's acting president, Dennis Henigan, pointed to the nearly identical reporting requirement that has existed for more than 40 years requiring gun dealers to report multiple sales of handguns by the same person within a five-day period.
"It is a modest burden for gun dealers to have them fill out this form, but it is an enormous help for law enforcement to be able to identify as quickly as possible purchasers who are walking away from gun shops with five, 10 or 20 of these assault rifles," said Henigan in an interview after the vote.
Citing the severity of the Mexican gun violence, the ATF in December asked the White House to fast-track the new reporting requirement, which the administration promptly declined.
Deputy Attorney General James Cole said earlier this week that the requirement was aimed at curbing sales of high-powered guns to traffickers for drug cartels, not average citizens attempting to arm themselves for sport or protection.
"This new reporting measure ... will improve the ability of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to detect and disrupt the illegal weapons trafficking networks responsible for diverting firearms from lawful commerce to criminals and criminal organizations," he said in a statement.
Rehberg's amendment was one of many offered during Wednesday's markup that pushed a heated gun-rights debate to the forefront of the committee's agenda, as Republicans soundly defeated a Democratic attempt to limit gun purchases by suspected terrorists and succeeded in inserting language to allow imports of more powerful types of shotguns.
#2
The rule from the Department of Justice (DOJ) requires dealers to report within five days multiple sales to the same person of semiautomatic rifles with removable magazines.
Given that the individuals making such purchases are most likely to be ATF/DoJ personnel or agents, won't they accept a photocopy with a new date stamp on each submission?
#3
"...the amendment to the fiscal 2012 Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies appropriations bill that would nix funding for the rule."
"That bill later died in the Senate, and Democrats stripped the reporting-requirement provision from a subsequent measure."
This is why conference committees exist, so that one chamber cannot force another chamber to support an amendment, or to strip an amendment, without some horse trading going on.
The House Republican leadership can insist that the amendment be restored in the final vote, or the overall funding bill is dead.
#6
I suspect if the Fast and Furious stuff hadn't hit the news we'd be blasted in the media about gun deaths in Mexico caused by American Assault weapons and a lot of pressure would have come around on anyone voting against this measure. Kind of suprised they didn't just table this now that the cat is out of the bag.
#8
I tend to agree with ya rjschwarz at 7, bill was likely set into motion a little while back and now they (gun control) see that window closing, down to executive orders and shadow dealings.
But I don't like that thought, it shows a concerted effort and raises the question, when and why did that effort begin? I find myself looking at the possibility that this act was part of the mission briefing as contingency plan and have to then consider as part of the mission and I'm not ready to do that - yet. The more information which comes out the more I don't like it.
So, why not greater restrictions on north border states, or is that next. What say you Canada, ready for the democrats to craft a plan to flood your country with violence so that they could extend this failed act into a nationwide USA social experiment?
Is it inappropriate to state that if the border was secure, this alleged activity could not happen...unless the FAT is involved.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
