This is ridiculous:
The White House press briefing this afternoon has been contentious, with some major give-and-take between CNN’s Ed Henry, ABC’s Jake Tapper and other correspondents as they pressed press secretary Robert Gibbs over the decision today by Pres. Obama not to release detainee abuse photos.
All three cablers were taking it live when the tension was lifted briefly by a series of cell phone rings, first from John Gizzi of Human Events. “Just put it on vibrate, man, we did this before,” said Gibbs. When it rang again, Gibbs stepped off the podium, demanded the phone, and tossed to an aide in the back room. When Gibbs began to answer the question, CBS’ Bill Plante’s phone rang. But Plante ignored Gibbs’ request to hand it over. Instead, Plante, a 28-year White House veteran, left the room to laughter. About five minutes later Plante returned to his front-row seat.
Plante then got up, walked across the room in front of the podium while talking on the phone. I can’t believe CBS is impressed with that behavior, and if I were the White House I would ban him from the briefings.
Additionally, you know who loves this? Robert Gibbs. It makes his life exceptionally easy when this sort of distraction is taking place. Not very hard to provide evasive answers to questions when every time you are halfway through a sentence, someone’s cell phone goes off. Check out the official transcript of the briefing:
Q The Bush administration has obviously made the argument that releasing these specific photographs will endanger troops and they did so in a way that he described with — while seeking the FOIA exemption for law enforcement personnel. The Second Circuit Court ruled against that, saying that it’s not — that exemption is not intended “as an all-purpose damper on global controversy.” What is this new argument that the President wants his team to present?
MR. GIBBS: That not seeking an exemption for law enforcement — (cell phone rings.) Give me the phone. (Laughter.) All right. This is — come here. Let me see this. (Laughter and applause.) This is enhanced interrogation technique. (Laughter.)
Q He threw your phone.
MR. GIBBS: No, no, somebody caught it, no worries. (Laughter.) I made the determination that — (laughter) — the illumination of the sound was distracting to the briefing as the Press Secretary to the President of the United States.
Q Here’s that mallet you wanted. (Laughter.)
(Cell phone rings.) (Laughter.)
MR. GIBBS: You, too? You want to do this, too? Here, come on. (Laughter.)
Q Gibbs wants to take my phone, but I don’t think it’s a good idea. (Laughter.)
Q No favoritism.
Q I’ll explain later. (Laughter.)
MR. GIBBS: I assume it’s your banker, with a suit like that. (Laughter.) Sorry. This is — cotton candy down the street, it’s a circus.
An easy ride out of the mess regarding the photos. I’m betting Robert Gibbs wouldn’t mind a cell phone going off every day.
Agi
Next to the guy who has to jerk off bulls for inseminating cows, being presidential press secretary looks like one of the world’s worst jobs.
El Cid
Buh, wait, I thought Obama was some super skeery oppressive total-tarian who would crush all who didn’t yield to his Obamessiahness? How can the librul medja what love & worship Nobama defy Him and not be kilt or somethin’?
How can the righties keep telling us that Obambi is simultaneously a completely gutless liberal and the worst threat to human freedom since Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot fused together to form Saul Alinsky?
Michael D.
When I first saw this, I read “Worse than Frenchmen” and I was wondering how you pulled that out of your ass! Heh.
Rob
Douche Baggins
What a bunch of Serious Journalism Professionals. Our host is absolutely right; Gibby benefits immensely from not having to honestly answer questions; democracy, not so much.
bago
Bonus Points: It was Jake Tapper who was asking the question at the time.
4thelulz
Obviously, one of Obama’s many admirers in the audience called in order to distract from an uncomfortable question.
/wingnut
WyldPirate
I think the entire phone call BS in the press room was staged.
I’ve watched a lot of those briefings and I can’t ever recall hearing a phone ring during one. To have an outbreak of phone ringing right in the midst of a very uncomfortable snow job by Gibbs about concealing the evidence of crimes is–how shall I say it—very convenient.
linda
Worse Than Freshmen
it seems worth noting that this past weekend’s event is adoringly referred to as a ‘nerd prom’ among the village magpies.
Zifnab
@WyldPirate:
And the way all the journalists snickered like school children while Plante ran out of the room to take his call… that was staged too.
I mean, who really remembers to put their phones on vibrate anyway, right? It’s not like you’re a bunch of seasoned veterans on national television interviewing a White House Administrator.
Incompetent, petulant, lazy journalism sounds a little too convenient for my tastes too. Conspiracy!
greennotGreen
I don’t know if the first called was staged, but I thought the second call looked like an intentional joke.
The Grand Panjandrum
@Jules Crittenden » Obama = Clinton?: Interesting who has been linking to you lately. Innit?
@Zifnab: The FSM loves That One. This is just more proof.
See how easy it is to explain things with magical thinking!
bago
I might believe it was a conspiracy if the press corps weren’t supine mouth-breathers for the past decade.
Two words: Jeff Gannon.
Joel
These clowns are dumber than a clown car with Tony Allen driving and Andy Katzenmoyer in the passenger’s seat.
It’s infuriating, frankly.
Joel
@Jules Crittenden » Obama = Clinton?: Speaking of Tony Allen…
Scott
Yeah, not a conspiracy, just the usual stupid reporters.
Also, Jules Crittenden is dumber’n paint.
Ash Can
@Jules Crittenden » Obama = Clinton?:
LOL @ U!
smiley
Gibbs made a pretty good quip when Plante came back in the room.
“Somebody brief Bill on our new Supreme Court nominee.” Or words to that effect, not so subtly implying that someone could miss a scoop/not be doing their job by taking a cell phone call out of the room.
Ash Can
@bago: Jeff Gannon couldn’t have been a mouth breather; he’d have suffocated.
John Cole
@The Grand Panjandrum: I honestly just think I am in Crittenden’s RSS feed and he just links to have something to link to, because he sure as hell never reads what he is linking to. None of his comments ever make any sense, half the time he is attributing stuff to me that was written by one of the other posters, and a good bit of the time he just links to have an excuse to write “asshole” or call someone on ‘teh left’ a pottymouth.
ricky
I think the proper sign of respect for the Washington press corps would be for Gibbs to throw his shoes at them.
wonkie
It’s a conspiracy.
I taught middle school for fourteen years and I know. This is how overly empowered spoiled brats behave.
I have been noticing how, right from the start, both Obama and Gibbs treated the press corpse as they deserved to be treated–not like professionals, but like people who needed to be reminded what professional journalism was. Remember the incident where a reporter asked a stupid “gothcha” question and Obama turned the joke on the reporter? Classic way for a teacher to put down the leader of a disruptive pack in the class. Also both Obama and Gibbs have a pattern of responding to the reporters’ questions as if the reporter had asked a question of substance– even when they didn’t–which is another technique for managing a class discussion in spite of the saboteurs in the class.
The press corpse is full of people with too much money who have been insiders too long annd who haven’t practiced real journalism in years. Both Gibbs and Obama have been rebuking them by implication at every press conference and I’m sure the spoiled brats are storing up resentment about it.
In this situation Gibbs gave an opening by seeming to be acting like Bush or a Bush spokesperson. You can’t demand high performance from your class of spoiled brats if you don’t perform at a high level yourself. Spotting an opening, the brats went after him with the questions about the photos. The first phone call may have been an honest mistake. Gibbs tried to restore order, to put himself back in charge by throwing the phone. That provoked the second phone call, a deliberate act to cut Gibbs down to size.
The cutting Gibbs down to size worked. The laughter was at him, in support of the brats involved in the incident. Gibbs did not help but stooping to their level with the jibe about the expensive suit (although there was the sting of truth there).
Gibbs shoud expect more of this. If it keeps up, then they’ll start on Obama. The only way out, to restore order, is to go back to maintaining a very high level of intellectual honesty in the responses to questions, while, in good effective school teacher style, putting down and marginalizing the disrupters. It would be fatal do do anything like banning phones or complaining to the networks. Gibbs needs to ride it out, to lay down some good days of in-control conferences.
BTW, I think that Gibbs WAS giving an intellectually honest answer to the reporters’ questions. However, the Beltway snobs are always on the look out for perceived inconsistancies to fuel their search for gotchas since they can’t be bothered to know anything or think about anything substantive.
Zifnab
@bago:
Hey, at least he knew how to silence a ring tone.
LD50
He’s also simultaneously a scary Mooslim *and* a lukewarm Christian who doesn’t go to church often enough.
He’s a versatile guy.
LD50
I think the relevant line here is “never attribute to malice what can be attributed to stupidity”.
HyperIon
Interesting that JC picked this up.
I commented on another thread yesterday that I saw Gibbs being a “funnyman” at a WH briefing shown on CSPAN in the last week. i found him sophmoric…sort like Chris Mathews is sometimes. He was so full of himself and his “clever” remarks. It was off-putting. The guy was loving being the chief cool kid in a room full of people who just KNOW they are cool. It reeked of inside the beltway smugness.
What is worse: a press secretary who blatantly stonewalls or one who tries to charm the idiot press core with lame “jokes”? I hope Gibbs does not continue in this vein.
Michael
Au contraire. Bulldog is (like all too many True Conservative opinion drivers) a top, according to what I remember reading.
I met him back in my wingnut days – he was pretty weird.
YellowJournalism
If CBS had any professional integrity, the guy would be fired. Expect him to have his own talk show soon.
I do not believe this is some kind of conspiracy to detract attention away from the real issues, although the second phone call could have been a way to get back at Gibbs for the first phone incident. This comes down to lack of professionalism and some kind of ever-growing sense of technological entitlement that makes people think their cell calls/texting/twittering is more important than the situation at hand. This is as bad or almost worse than the senators and other politicians who were twittering during Obama’s speech.
Sadly, I never thought that something that at worst would happen in the movie theatre would happen during a White House press briefing.
Perry Como
i think gibbs is a pretty cool guy. eh takes reporters’ phones and doesn’t afraid of anything.
mellowjohn
maybe the next time plante needs to leave his seat, he should lose it… to… oh, i don’t know, maybe john cole.
Brian J
Why is Human Events in the White House press briefing room? Since when is that publication in the same league as The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal?
DougJ
Yeah, I agree. This stuff is silly.
gypsy howell
Why shouldn’t the press corps treat themselves and the press briefing process as a joke. They are a joke.
That One - Cain
you know it occurs to me that if Obama reads Sully, does he end up reading posts by John/DougJ/TimF that Sully links to? (and he does link regularly)
I suppose one could check the logs.. :-)
cain
russell
My money says the aide called Plante from Gizzi’s phone.
LD50
In the conservatory with a candlestick.
tammanycall
I like Gibbs. There were two ways most people would have reacted to this situation: get annoyed or laugh it off. Either way, the reaction was going to be the news. Given the circumstances, he made the right choice.
binzinerator
Bill Plante thought he was being so damn funny, showing up Gibbs. These dumbfuck journos really think they are their own audience, don’t they?
The public reasonably expected this fucktard to try to get a straight answer out of the Press Secretary, a responsibility that one would think goes with being a journalist granted a WH press pass, a responsibility one may argue is owed to society in return for rights and special freedoms granted to the press by our society. No one sees any value in a societal contract with a grown man acting like a 15-year-old in a petty power struggle with the homeroom teacher over inappropriate cell phone use.
A 28-year veteran of the WH and this is his idea of professionalism?
Hey Plante you irresponsible jackass excuse of a journalist, remember us, the Public? You fucking owe us your best effort to get the truth out of that guy behind the podium, not indulge in a sophomoric fuckyou that gets him off the hook by your immature acting out. You did him a service by giving him a dodge. And you did the entire nation a big disservice. It’s really the entire nation you gave the middle finger to, you self-absorbed asshole, not Gibbs.
Can anyone wonder now why we had 8 years of unchecked abuses by Bush? Why no WH reporter other than Helen Thomas ever consistently asked any hard questions? It’s because these fuckstains basically have the maturity of 15-year-olds. Immature minds are not capable of critical thinking.
Ash
Are people in this thread being serious? God help me, I can’t tell.
Joey Giraud
But Ash, Wonkie @ 23 certainly is serious, and illuminating as hell.
tcolberg
Yes, Wonkie’s comment @ #23 was quite insightful. Maybe CBS should be banned for a week or get bumped a few rows back in the seating arrangement? It’s really sad to see the WH press corps for what they are — clowns.