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You are here: Home / Politics / Media / Pitney versus Milbank

Pitney versus Milbank

by DougJ|  June 28, 20091:19 pm| 73 Comments

This post is in: Media

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Via Atrios, here’s Pitney smacking down Milbank:

Milbank tries to ask Pitney a question about Bush calling on a Fox reporter, but asks it in an inaccurate way. So, let’s pose Milbank’s question as he should have asked it: If there was a Fox reporter who was in contact with a number of Iraqis (possibly on an Arabic language social networking site) and Bush told that Fox reporter that he would like the reporter to ask a question from an Iraqi person at the next day’s news conference, would you see that as inappropriate collusion?

For me, the answer is clearly “no”. And it would be even more clearly “no” if it turned out to be a difficult question.

I understand the point Milbank and others are trying to make, but the way in which they are making it is fundamentally dishonest. The question was a good question and it seems to have come from an Iranian person. Isn’t that good enough?

Update. A few more technical things…Media Matters seems to have inaccurately characterized Milbank’s coverage of Jeff Gannon. I’ll look for an explanation of this.

On the other hand, Milbank describes Pitney’s assertion that Milbank wrote positive about the Mission Accomplished stunt as “fiction”. In fact, here’s what he wrote (via Greg Sargent):

When the Viking carrying Bush made its tailhook landing on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln off California yesterday, the scene brought presidential imagery to a whole new level. Bush emerged from the cockpit in full olive flight suit and combat boots, his helmet tucked jauntily under his left arm. As he exchanged salutes with the sailors, his ejection harness, hugging him tightly between the legs, gave him the bowlegged swagger of a top gun.

For Bush — who also gave a national address from the carrier and spent the night aboard — it was a bold bid to surround himself with the aura of the U.S. military.

Milbank did also write a piece about Mission Accomplished that was more critical.

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Reader Interactions

73Comments

  1. 1.

    Eric U.

    June 28, 2009 at 1:23 pm

    in a rational world, you wouldn’t even have to ask the question, of course it would be good enough. I figured out that newspapers published bullshit stories when I was 11. And I also figured out that was the nature of the news business, and as long as they also published the truth, I was smart enough to tell the difference. Nowadays, they only publish or broadcast the bullshit, and you have to dig up the truth on the internet. And the guys that are publishing the truth have their careers damaged, look at Froomkin.

  2. 2.

    Mike G

    June 28, 2009 at 1:25 pm

    Shorter Milbank:
    You’re making our shallow, silly questions look bad with your insightful ones. And you’ve violated any number of Versailles court unwritten rules of etiquette and deference with your lack of perfumed wigs and Milanese shirt ruffles. In the name of journalistic royalty I command you to cease.

  3. 3.

    El Cid

    June 28, 2009 at 1:30 pm

    Holy sh*t, oh smack.

    Damn, it was beautiful watching Nico Pitney smacking the ever-living sh*t out of Dana Milbank and all the idiot, cowardly, lazy villages he represents.

  4. 4.

    Kyle

    June 28, 2009 at 1:30 pm

    If there was a Fox reporter who was in contact with a number of Iraqis (possibly on an Arabic language social networking site)

    The idea of a Fox News ‘reporter’ actually seeking out more insightful questions from unconventional sources, and non-American, non-English-speaking ones at that, is of course ridiculous on its face. But I understand the anaolgy.

  5. 5.

    JK

    June 28, 2009 at 1:32 pm

    For Dana Milbank, who engages in idiotic schtick like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zL8lgWpP9wY and appeared on Countdown in a hunter’s outfit the day of Cheney’s shooting incident, to question another journalist’s ethics, judgment, or professionalism is a joke.

  6. 6.

    K. Grant

    June 28, 2009 at 1:35 pm

    Milbank is simply embarrassing himself in this segment. He is acting as petulant and whiny as any spoiled brat from an exceptionally wealthy family. What, all of sudden he realizes that, my God, merit may actually have something do with getting ahead in this business? Honestly.

    If the Village is hoping that Milbank is their knight in shining armor, they are in for an amazingly rude awakening.

  7. 7.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    June 28, 2009 at 1:38 pm

    Wow. Millbank’s utter contempt and attempts to patronize the younger reporter– all the touching on the arm and shoulder and so on– my god.

    There’s a worthwhile debate to be had here and Kurtz was actually trying to nudge things toward it, rather amazingly, but this wasn’t it, this was a circus act by Dana the Defensive Patronizing Clown.

    Especially considering that this is what’s been considered journalism for the past eight years:

    As he exchanged salutes with the sailors, his ejection harness, hugging him tightly between the legs,

  8. 8.

    geg6

    June 28, 2009 at 1:40 pm

    Dana Milbank is another inflated ego who seems to think sneering and a derisive tone make his tiny little penis bigger. Good thing that Pitney set him straight on that.

  9. 9.

    Eric U.

    June 28, 2009 at 1:40 pm

    I suppose this comment would work better in the Froomkin thread below, but why are the two most prominent newspapers in the country trying to destroy themselves at this time? I was having trouble grasping the fact that the L.A. Times has managed to gut itself. I know the advertisers are right-wing freaks, but the readership is on the left.

  10. 10.

    geg6

    June 28, 2009 at 1:42 pm

    Jeebus, I hate the filters on this site. Sorry, guys.

  11. 11.

    John Cole

    June 28, 2009 at 1:45 pm

    I honestly can not be the only one who was completely and thoroughly repulsed by the smugness of Milbank. I seriously wanted to punch him in the face.

    I’m just done with the Washington Post. I’m no longer linking it, I’m not reading it, and I’m not giving these people another penny or page view.

    And since I know you all are narcissistic pricks who scan written about you in blogs, grow the fuck up, Dana.

  12. 12.

    Rosali

    June 28, 2009 at 1:50 pm

    Milbank used to appear regularly on Olberman’s Countdown until Keith banned him. Milbank wrote the Obama said “I am the hope that America has been waiting for” and refused to provide the entire quote and the context which would show that Obama meant the exact opposite of what Milbank was asserting.

  13. 13.

    C Nelson Reilly

    June 28, 2009 at 1:50 pm

    @John Cole:
    I thought you were a neck puncher.

  14. 14.

    north_aufzoo

    June 28, 2009 at 1:50 pm

    Something about Dana Milbank’s on-air performance reminds me of an especially weaselly Ed Helms circa Daily Show or Office. Except that’s really not fair to Ed Helms.

  15. 15.

    sgwhiteinfla

    June 28, 2009 at 1:50 pm

    Here is the simple way to know that Milbank and the rest of those clowns are full of shit.

    Not Milbank nor Mark Knoller not any other tradtional outlet that criticised Pitney’s question actually included the question he asked in their criticism.

    To reiterate, in columns dedicated to criticizing President Obama allowing Nico Pitney to asking a question none of them included the question.

    Case fucking closed and its not even close.

  16. 16.

    demkat620

    June 28, 2009 at 1:51 pm

    Well, I don’t think Dana’s ever recovered from the pearl clutching over his appearance on Olbermann in the hunting garb.

  17. 17.

    linda

    June 28, 2009 at 1:53 pm

    milbank really is an insufferable prick. he’s also skull and bones.

    have to disagree re the ‘mission accomplished’ link — perhaps more factual, but certainly not critical. that piece was only written after the national outcry and details emerged.

  18. 18.

    Woody

    June 28, 2009 at 1:54 pm

    Eric U: Murka’s papers aren’t ‘gutting themselves.’

    They have been and continue to be gutted by CorpoRat interests which bought up and consolidated newspaper ‘properties’ at an astonishing and destructive rate beginning in the ’80s.

    Corporate ‘rationalities’ that are either inimical or contradictory to “good” journalism practice.

    And good journalism is inimical to the corporate proclivities for cheaing, lying, theft and other dishonesties intrinsic to “business.”

    So it was no accident that the papers declined. It was in the CorpoRat interest to first, acquire, them then to bleed them, then to gut them, and now to sell the worthless hulks.

    The Washington press corpse illustrates exceptionally well that it is NEVER harde to ffind hacks and shills and propagandiasts to replace good journalists.

  19. 19.

    demkat620

    June 28, 2009 at 1:55 pm

    I still don’t get what the MSM is so upset about. Is it just that anybody over than them got a question or that he asked an actual substantive question.

  20. 20.

    kommrade reproductive vigor

    June 28, 2009 at 1:55 pm

    In less than ten (Edit: make it 6) years members of the print media have gone from being certain that blogs would never amount to anything* to the holy shit moment when they realized they pose threat. (Do you think newspapers want to offer free content on the internons? Nuh-uh.) But the reason the Milbanks will continually step on their dicks is they think the threat can be eliminated or neutralized by throwing a tantrum. Kind of like a certain political party.

    Popcorn?

    As he exchanged salutes with the sailors, his ejection harness, hugging him tightly between the legs, gave him the bowlegged swagger of a top gun.

    Starbursts!

    *I admit I did my share of scoffing back when these newfangled web blogs thingamajiggers began to catch on. My bad.

  21. 21.

    dmsilev

    June 28, 2009 at 1:56 pm

    Milbank wants it both ways. He wants to be the court jester, poking fun at overinflated egos. But at the same time, he wants to be the Serious Reporter writing Serious Pieces.

    Even if he had the talent for one or the other, those roles are completely incompatible. Sadly for him, he sucks at both. He’s a bit better at the jester role, but compared to Stewart or Colbert, he’s pretty lame.

    -dms

  22. 22.

    JenJen

    June 28, 2009 at 2:01 pm

    Ana Marie Cox claimed in a tweet this morning that when the interview was over, Dana Milbank told Nico Pitney, “You’re such a dick.”

    Would love to get confirmation on that…

    That was a pretty fascinating interview; thanks for covering this story so well, DougJ. To me, Dana Milbank will always be a clown; the guy who appeared on Keith Olbermann’s show wearing a hunting cap and vest the day after Dick Cheney shot his friend in the face, for example.

  23. 23.

    Death By Mosquito Truck

    June 28, 2009 at 2:02 pm

    Jesus, Milbank is more of a douchebag than I’d imagined.

  24. 24.

    linda

    June 28, 2009 at 2:02 pm

    oh my… looks like there’s been an update via atrios:

    …over email, Nico says Milbank whispered “You’re such a dick” into his ear after the segment.

  25. 25.

    AhabTRuler

    June 28, 2009 at 2:05 pm

    I thought you were a neck puncher.

    This has got him so angry he is ready to discard his usual subtlety for a frontal attack!

  26. 26.

    YellowJournalism

    June 28, 2009 at 2:07 pm

    @linda: Better a dick than a douche.

  27. 27.

    Legalize

    June 28, 2009 at 2:10 pm

    That was pretty satisfying: a smart guy who does actual reporting telling the media establishment – directly to its face on television – that it is pathetic and worthless. I love that the gal from the Moonie Times even had to admit that Nico did nothing wrong. This is solely about jealousy and Milbank demonstrated such.

  28. 28.

    sarah

    June 28, 2009 at 2:15 pm

    just get out your dicks and measure them. this journalist in-fighting is bullshit on top of bullshit.

  29. 29.

    Rosali

    June 28, 2009 at 2:15 pm

    Here’s Olbermann saying why Milbank would not be back on Countdown.

    For nearly a week we’d been waiting for him to offer a correction or an explanation for his column from last week in which he apparently reported an Obama quote without a full context turned the meaning of the quote inside-out.

    Then he called criticisms of his column “whines” even though the dispute was over whether Obama said the self-deprecating: “It has become increasingly clear in my travel, the campaign — that the crowds, the enthusiasm, 200,000 people in Berlin, is not about me at all. It’s about America. I have just become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions” — or only the part about “I have just become a symbol…”

  30. 30.

    malraux

    June 28, 2009 at 2:15 pm

    I don’t understand Carpenter’s claim that the everyone in the press room gets a “fair shot at the president”. Kurtz started the segment off by pointing out that there’s a traditional order by which reporters get to ask questions. Those two ideas directly contradict each other. Moreover, unless the president is pulling names out of a hat, there’s no fair shot, the order is at the discretion of the president.

    And how much of an outcry was there when Bush had entire press conferences scripted in advance?

  31. 31.

    JenJen

    June 28, 2009 at 2:17 pm

    Howie Kurtz initially denied Ana Marie Cox’ report that Dana called Nico a “dick” after the interview, but he’s backing off of that now, tweeting that maybe it got heated between them after they left the set.

    Sounds like there’s going to be a lot more to this.

  32. 32.

    demkat620

    June 28, 2009 at 2:20 pm

    @JenJen: Good. If these fuckers would have done their job to begin with we might not be in this mess.

    Edit: To be clear, Nico did his homework and asked a substantive question. Milbank wants to save journalism for the elites.

  33. 33.

    Zach

    June 28, 2009 at 2:22 pm

    I love whoever that is being pissed off that he was escorted to the front of the room (and I’m looking at the video, he’s in the middle of the room along the wall) to “ask a question IN A PLACE WHERE EVERYONE SHOULD GET A FAIR CRACK AT THE PRESIDENT!!!” The whole controversy is that he got called on second instead of the AP or whatever the stupid convention is. I guess following the order laid down by decades of convention is what’s fair.

  34. 34.

    malraux

    June 28, 2009 at 2:23 pm

    BTW, my favorite part of the Bush’s scripted prewar press conference, wherein the order of the questions was predetermined and the reporters knew this, was that the reporters still raised their hands to get called upon, intentionally acting for the benefit of the viewing audience.

  35. 35.

    demkat620

    June 28, 2009 at 2:26 pm

    I have to wonder, does this fall under the category of Obama’s ability to drive opponents batshit insane with little or no effort?

    I think it might.

  36. 36.

    flounder

    June 28, 2009 at 2:31 pm

    SO I think that whole ABC health care thing was basically a press conference. Is the fact that (out of almost 200 people who thought they might get to ask the Prez a question) an insurance CEO and the president of the AMA were chosen to ask questions considered some sort of collusion?
    Why isn’t anyone bitching about this?

  37. 37.

    Martin

    June 28, 2009 at 2:32 pm

    I still don’t get what the MSM is so upset about. Is it just that anybody over than them got a question or that he asked an actual substantive question.

    Nico! You’re doing it wrong!

    See, Nico didn’t ask the 17th version of “Did you decide to finally show some balls with Iran because John McCain called you out?”

    See, the WH press corps are tasked with building the next pundit narrative, not gathering news. Nico fucked up their plans.

  38. 38.

    JenJen

    June 28, 2009 at 2:37 pm

    @malraux: Oh, wow. I never thought of that before. You’re absolutely right.

    For my money, Bush’s pre-war presser was the most chilling in modern history.

  39. 39.

    kay

    June 28, 2009 at 2:38 pm

    It sucks so much, because the disastrous run-up to Iraq is still with us. It’s still polluting and distorting the whole dialogue.

    That war is going to poison everything that comes after, for a long, long time. It’s where the media defensiveness comes from. They can’t let go of it. If they admit it happened, and admit it was unique to that administration and that war, they have to go to why, and they don’t want to go there.

  40. 40.

    Ash

    June 28, 2009 at 2:39 pm

    WHAT IS THE BIG FUCKING DEAL?

  41. 41.

    JK

    June 28, 2009 at 2:44 pm

    Amanda Carpenter gave Dana Milbank a good run for his money in terms of who came across as the biggest asshole in this segment.

  42. 42.

    passerby

    June 28, 2009 at 2:47 pm

    Nico Pitney. It so refreshing to see a young, forthright and competent journalist at work.

    If you get a chance to watch the vid again, as a treat, watch Dana M’s face when Nico answers the question: Do you think there’s any jealousy involved?

    Nico: Yes, there’s jealousy and hypocrisy (my emphasis)…

    The look on Dana’s face. Aghastment. Not being accustomed to being challenged in any manner, I bet Dana peed himself.

    Then there was the priceless moment when Dana ran to Mommy. He turned and faced the moderator saying “well, I can’t deal with the fiction being put out on this show” (or something to that effect.)

    I hadn’t seen Nico in action before. He’s not only competent, there’s a very likeable quality about him.

    Delightful and thanks for posting this DougJ

  43. 43.

    kay

    June 28, 2009 at 2:54 pm

    My favorite part of the press conference was where Obama asked Jake Tapper of ABC News: “Are you the ombudsman for the White House press corps?”

    I thought that was very clever, because Tapper has assumed that role, and it’s bizarre.

    The White House press are supposed to be on adversarial footing with the Prez, so that’s fine, but they’re also supposed to be competing with each other. Jake Tapper isn’t supposed to appoint himself Team Captain, because they’re not a team.

  44. 44.

    AkaDad

    June 28, 2009 at 2:56 pm

    I thought you were a neck puncher.

    I can’t speak for John, but I believe he’s into kicking junk.

    Swiftly. Also.

  45. 45.

    Brachiator

    June 28, 2009 at 2:58 pm

    I understand the point Milbank and others are trying to make, but the way in which they are making it is fundamentally dishonest. The question was a good question and it seems to have come from an Iranian person. Isn’t that good enough?

    The only thing more enjoyable than watching the GOP self-destruct is watching the media self-destruct.

    Milbank’s claim of some kind of unholy collusion between the White House and Pitney is patently ridiculous, and what they are left with is the childish tantrum that Obama is unfair by promoting Pitney over the established older children, uh, reporters.

    kommrade reproductive vigor – In less than ten (Edit: make it 6) years members of the print media have gone from being certain that blogs would never amount to anything* to the holy shit moment when they realized they pose threat. (Do you think newspapers want to offer free content on the internons? Nuh-uh.)

    No media outlet can continue to offer free content on the InterTubes. Newspapers believed that the publicity of web content would bring people to the physical paper. They were wrong. And they can’t make money on the Internet. In the short run, the quantity and quality of news will decline until someone can come up with a new business model.

    This will bring down some blogs as well, since there are very few that do any original reporting, and fewer still which can deliver intelligent commentary in the absence of hard news sources.

    Eric U – I was having trouble grasping the fact that the L.A. Times has managed to gut itself. I know the advertisers are right-wing freaks, but the readership is on the left.

    Wrong on both counts. The Times can’t get or keep advertisers, and without advertising, they can’t sustain the newspaper. They don’t care about the advertisers’ politics, nor does being a right-wing freak advertiser give you any clout with the Times. The Times main appeal has been to the moderate right since the 60s, even when the editorial leadership was decidedly lefty.

  46. 46.

    Lesley

    June 28, 2009 at 3:04 pm

    Talk about the pot calling the kettle collusive. Fox News was the Bush administration’s publicist, for Christ sakes.

  47. 47.

    JenJen

    June 28, 2009 at 3:26 pm

    @kay:

    My favorite part of the press conference was where Obama asked Jake Tapper of ABC News: “Are you the ombudsman for the White House press corps?”

    Yeah, and do you recall the look on Tapper’s face at the time? WATB’s, all of ’em.

  48. 48.

    sarah

    June 28, 2009 at 3:26 pm

    @kay:

    My favorite part of the press conference was where Obama asked Jake Tapper of ABC News: “Are you the ombudsman for the White House press corps?”

    I thought that was very clever, because Tapper has assumed that role, and it’s bizarre.

    The White House press are supposed to be on adversarial footing with the Prez, so that’s fine, but they’re also supposed to be competing with each other. Jake Tapper isn’t supposed to appoint himself Team Captain, because they’re not a team.

    where does he do that? i’m trying to find it in the vid. that does sound like strange behavior.

  49. 49.

    JenJen

    June 28, 2009 at 3:41 pm

    Nico’s side of the story:

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nico-pitney/debating-the-iran-questio_b_222001.html

    The only thing that surprised me was when Dana turned to me after our initial sparring and called me a “dick” in a whispered tone (the specific phrase was, I believe, “You’re such a dick”). Howie Kurtz wrote on Twitter that he didn’t hear it, which is understandable — he was doing the lead-in for the next part of the segment on the ABC White House special. But it happened (I urge Howie to watch the video of the panel during the ABC intro) and it was frankly pretty odd.

    Even Howie Kurtz now admits to having missed it.

  50. 50.

    kay

    June 28, 2009 at 3:47 pm

    @JenJen:

    It was professorial of Obama, almost parental, and that’s why Tapper was offended, but it’s a damn good question. I think the condescension in Obama’s phrasing was deliberate. Obama pisses people off to throw them off, and that’s a fair tactic, IMO.

    Obama gets that this is adversarial. He’s okay with that. What he expects, though, is some competition within the ranks of his press opponents.

    If they’re not competing with each other, and are indeed a team, we’re in serious trouble, because the only thing stopping them from linking arms and promoting a team meme is that they’re supposed to be competitors. We learned that shit the hard way in Iraq. That Obama (unlike Bush) isn’t on the WHPC team still poses a problem.

    One team. The President’s team versus a group of individuals battling for supremacy on information. Them’s the rules.

  51. 51.

    tavella

    June 28, 2009 at 3:49 pm

    The really pathetic thing? As Posties and members of the Village go, Milbank is actually better than average. He occasionally vaguely approached reality during the Bushista years.

    Of course, this is more an indictment of the utterly dreadful, bootlicking quality of the press during the Bush regime than a sign of any real quality in Milbank.

  52. 52.

    tavella

    June 28, 2009 at 3:54 pm

    Also, the descriptions of the press’s attitude are so true. The establishment press, especially the Washington ones, absolutely view themselves as a royal court, awaiting the return of their true masters and disdaining the dark-skinned upstart, and certainly those unrefined souls who are not of the True Press.

    It’s one of the reasons that I think it’s foolish for Obama to keep buying into right-wing narratives and demands; no matter how much he puts on the airs of a Republican, they’ll never accept him as one. No more than Clinton was ever accepted despite acting like a Republican for most of his terms.

  53. 53.

    Kathy in St. Louis

    June 28, 2009 at 4:28 pm

    Did that description of Bush read just a tad like a horny women’s novel, or maybe some very tame gay porno piece? I only say this because he seems rather intrigued by that ejection harness and how it hugged W between the legs?

  54. 54.

    Brachiator

    June 28, 2009 at 4:28 pm

    @tavella:

    Also, the descriptions of the press’s attitude are so true. The establishment press, especially the Washington ones, absolutely view themselves as a royal court, awaiting the return of their true masters and disdaining the dark-skinned upstart, and certainly those unrefined souls who are not of the True Press.

    The press would happily embrace Obama if only he agreed to fully play their game. They are afraid that he will not buy into many of their ceremonies or customs, even the ones that still have a still residue of past racist or sexist exclusion.

    They are even more frightened that Obama may force them to learn something about contemporary black culture or cause them to feel excluded, or make them embrace anything that is a challenge to the old Beltway social traditions, which are based on WASP, British and French models. This is one of the reasons it was so funny when Obama threw them all for a loop by invited Congress to a Hawaiian lua (Straw hats, hula dancers and an Obama ‘boogy’ as White House picnic turns into Hawaiian luau) for the annual White House picnic. Some great photos here.

    It’s one of the reasons that I think it’s foolish for Obama to keep buying into right-wing narratives and demands; no matter how much he puts on the airs of a Republican, they’ll never accept him as one. No more than Clinton was ever accepted despite acting like a Republican for most of his terms.

    Obama is not trying to be bi-partisan for the sake of Republican politicians. Instead, he recognizes that there are conservative and independent citizens and voters. He knows that if he can continue to undercut Republican Party support, then they have nothing.

  55. 55.

    Nellcote

    June 28, 2009 at 4:37 pm

    So next presscon the Prez should only call on the backbenchers and bloggers in the room. See if the quality of questions goes up. Leave out the big names. Or maybe just call on Tapper to see if the rest turn on him.

  56. 56.

    passerby

    June 28, 2009 at 4:44 pm

    @Brachiator:

    Thanks for linking those great photos. In the first 2, Obama has his tongue out as he dances with Sasha, her ponytail afling–heart warming. And then we see Michelle and Malia with amused smiles which, I’m guessing, is a response to watching Obama “get down”.

  57. 57.

    passerby

    June 28, 2009 at 4:58 pm

    @Nellcote:

    So next presscon the Prez should only call on the backbenchers and bloggers in the room. See if the quality of questions goes up. Leave out the big names. Or maybe just call on Tapper to see if the rest turn on him.

    Now that would be a great moment in American history. Great idea.

    Obama’s been very clever in the way he’s shaking up the old press hands. Recall that first presser held in the East Room. Obama called on some woman journalist, who stood up surprised and said she didn’t know he was going to call on her (was it Maureen Dowd?) then she proceeded to ask some lame question about what it’s like being a black president or something.

    Clearly, she was just along for the ride and was not prepared with a germane question. I think this was Obama’s way of getting their attention and signaling a break from the old, stale, established presser routine.

  58. 58.

    JK

    June 28, 2009 at 5:04 pm

    @passerby:

    It was Ann Compton of ABC News and she should have been fired for asking such a stupid question.

  59. 59.

    kay

    June 28, 2009 at 5:21 pm

    @Nellcote:

    Just call on Tapper to get the Consensus Press Question. It might save time.

    The one and only question they asked was this: did Obama harden his rhetoric re: Iran in response to Republican complaints? It’s really about their favorite subject, that dreamy war hero, John McCain, because it doesn’t have jack to do with Iran.

    Three slight variations on that question. It’s a stupid question, purely political, and of no practical import re:Iran, but that was the Consensus Press Question, so they asked it 3 ways. I wanted to scream.

    They’re a mindless hive. Just send Jake Tapper, Queen Bee, have Tapper ask the stupid consensus question, then wrap it up.

  60. 60.

    JGabriel

    June 28, 2009 at 5:47 pm

    @Kathy in St. Louis:

    I only say this because he seems rather intrigued by that ejection harness and how it hugged W between the legs?

    My understanding is that most real military pilots thought it made him look like an ass who didn’t know how to remove his harness.

    .

  61. 61.

    chrome agnomen

    June 28, 2009 at 5:50 pm

    up next: dana milbank’s galactic butt-hurt.

    what a pathetically dishonest person he comes off as.

  62. 62.

    Mike in NC

    June 28, 2009 at 5:55 pm

    I only say this because he seems rather intrigued by that ejection harness and how it hugged W between the legs?

    Didn’t virtually the entire White House Press Corps spend eight years trying to get between Dubya’s legs?

  63. 63.

    passerby

    June 28, 2009 at 5:55 pm

    @JK:

    Heh, if only they would fire every asker of a stupid question we’d get better press coverage.

    I just loved the way Nico tossed the “multiple times you asked the President about how he looked in a bathing suit” thing into Dana’s lap. That had some galactic zing to it.

  64. 64.

    asiangrrlMN

    June 28, 2009 at 7:11 pm

    What a dick, Dana is. Oh my god, could he be any more petty? As for Amanda, she is vapid, and stupid, and an idiot. “Wah, wah, wah, everyone should get a fair crack!” Yup. And Nico did. Good for Nico. I would neck punch Dana twice and Amanda once if I weren’t a pacifist.

    @sarah: When Obama calls on Jake to ask a question, stupid idiot says something like, “I want to go back to _____’s question.” That’s when Obama says his line.

    Useless, the lot of them. I agree that next time, Obama should ONLY call on second-stringers and bloggers.

  65. 65.

    Ash Can

    June 28, 2009 at 7:16 pm

    @Brachiator:

    This is one of the reasons it was so funny when Obama threw them all for a loop by invited Congress to a Hawaiian lua (Straw hats, hula dancers and an Obama ‘boogy’ as White House picnic turns into Hawaiian luau) for the annual White House picnic.

    I understand that, at that picnic, Sasha Obama dropped Rahm Emanuel into the dunk tank on one pitch. Sign ‘er up!

  66. 66.

    JadedOptimist

    June 28, 2009 at 7:19 pm

    Those pictures of the White House Luau are FULL of win, but the picture of Gibbs in the dunk tank is really appropriate to this thread. I remember reading Very Serious People saying before the Inaugural that of all Obama’s appointments, Gibbs was probably the weakest, that he was going to be in way over his head and would never last. But instead, Gibbs is having the time of his life re-inventing the role of Press Secretary in the internet era. Obama is much less dependent on the press to get his message out not only because their readership and influence has been declining. He’s also got Organizing for America through which he can get his message directly to a few million subscribers from the campaign (and I bet it’s grown since then), with suggestions on how to spread the message at the grassroots level. Gibbs in the dunk tank says, “This isn’t Versailles. Don’t take yourselves so damn seriously.”

    All the photos taken together are a wonderful rebuke to the idiots who whine about how this administration is moving away from ‘what made America great’. The first African-American President of the United States threw a luau, a Pacific Island tradition for entertaining honored guests, for members of Congress. Because he is also Hawaiian. Even though he’s ‘from’ Chicago. Where his wife was born. His wife, who quite possibly may have had ancestors who built that very White House. As slaves.

    That, IMHO is what makes America great. Not press conference protocol.

  67. 67.

    Brachiator

    June 28, 2009 at 8:21 pm

    @JadedOptimist:

    All the photos taken together are a wonderful rebuke to the idiots who whine about how this administration is moving away from ‘what made America great’. The first African-American President of the United States threw a luau, a Pacific Island tradition for entertaining honored guests, for members of Congress. Because he is also Hawaiian. Even though he’s ‘from’ Chicago. Where his wife was born. His wife, who quite possibly may have had ancestors who built that very White House.

    You nailed it. One of the things that continues to amaze me is how pundits can view Sarah Palin as perhaps a native Alaskan, even though she was born in Idaho, but cannot acknowledge the depth of Obama’s connections to Hawaii, even though he was born there and raised by his grandparents there.

    And this also brings to mind one of the more spectacular bits of stupidity from the lame Washington based pundits, Villager Cokie Roberts carping about Obama taking a vacation in Hawaii while running for president (Cokie Roberts on Obama’s vacation):

    ROBERTS: — … he is tied in the polls and stage-sided in the polls and going off this week to a vacation in Hawaii — does not make any sense whatsoever. I know his grandmother lives in Hawaii and I know Hawaii is a state, but it has the look of him going off to some sort of foreign, exotic place. He should be in Myrtle Beach, and, you know, if he’s going to take a vacation at this time.

    Cokie Roberts and Milbank are emblematic of a White House press corps whose arrogant sense of entitlement is exceeded only be their often appalling stoopidity.

  68. 68.

    Max renn

    June 28, 2009 at 8:37 pm

    @malraux:

    This was also the presser in which some reporters noted that Bush actually appeared to be medicated . . .

  69. 69.

    thimbles

    June 28, 2009 at 11:42 pm

    Yeah, maybe milbank criticized Gannon months after he was taking regular questions and after a blogger broke the story he was an “uncut” prostitute, but there was no objections to the partisan bullshit Bush & cronies pulled before the scandal. Bush people were allowed to pick and choose their questioners, freeze them out completely or give them Woodwardian run of the Whitehouse – depending on how well they performed journalistic fellatio.

    Obama is being held to the rules of the gossips. The *audience of the Washington Post demands gossip, not tawdry policy.

    *(When I worked at McDonalds in high school, we would do market surveys asking customers what they prioritized. Turns out they prioritized speed over freshness and health, so we geared our restaurant to serve customer’s chief priority. However, we discovered that a. the McDonalds public is different from the general public b. that the McDonalds public prioritized speed when freshness and health were at satisfactory levels. When we adjusted those levels in order to improve speed, customers started to gain new priorities. Of course it took Subway and Quizno’s opening nearby in order for our McDonalds to adjust. “Fast and fresh and healthy? None of our surveys indicated the public wanted that.”)

  70. 70.

    Mr Furious

    June 29, 2009 at 12:41 am

    Milbank repeatedly falsely asserts that the White House fed Pitney his question or lobbied for a sympathetic question or one asked in a certain way—none of which are true.

    The White Houe told Pitney that Obama would like a question from an Iranian, and he might call on him. Period.

    Pitney solicited questions from Iran, selected it on his own, and asked Obama a direct, relevant and difficult question that Obama actually failed to really answer.

    I was disappointed in the exchange with Milbank that Pitney didn’t really effectively beat back Milbanks bullshit and make that point clear.

  71. 71.

    Mr Furious

    June 29, 2009 at 12:49 am

    I love the part about how Milbank tries to lump Pitney in with criticism from “his colleagues at Huffington Post.”

    Colleagues like who? Alec Baldwin? Dr. Drew?

    As if the Huffington Post is actually a newsroom somewhere and they all sit around the water cooler and make fun of little Dana.

  72. 72.

    thimbles

    June 29, 2009 at 1:57 am

    Dana the gossip, from Digby:
    http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2009/06/being-villager-by-digby.html

    MILBANK: You know what it is, Howie, I think that Gore is sanctimonious and that’s sort of the worst thing you can be in the eyes of the press. And he has been disliked all along and it was because he gives a sense that he’s better than us—he’s better than everybody, for that matter, but the sense that he’s better than us as reporters. Whereas President Bush probably is sure that he’s better than us—he’s probably right—but he does not convey that sense. He does not seem to be dripping with contempt when he looks at us, and I think that has something to do with the coverage.

    What an enormous putz.

  73. 73.

    Mouse Tolliver

    June 29, 2009 at 2:51 am

    As I recall our Elite Media let Jeff Gannon play softball kabuki for two years before anyone bothered to call him out for colluding with the White House. They only put a stop to Gannon’s charade when it threatened their sense of entitlement. Dubya held a rare press conference and threw a question to Jimmy/Jeff, the “hot military stud,” after ignoring more established reporters.

    BTW, I just googled Gannon’s bio. His Wikipedia photo is credited to Matt Sanchez. That would be the same Matt Sanchez who did gay p0rn and prostituted himself to male clients in the 1990s under the name Rod Majors. The same Matt Sanchez who now works for the Fox News Channel.

    Small world, huh?

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