Robert Gibbs Has Declared War on Everyone
Floyd Brown, Floyd Reports
We in the conservative movement are used to having the words of Robert Gibbs lobbed at us like grenades on a battlefield.
Gibbs has called conservatives "crazy." He has called us "birthers." He has said, "I’m almost positive that no argument is somehow going to dissuade [them]."
But now he isn’t firing only at conservatives. His utter frustration in the job has him targeting his guns at the Left. He even used the same word in describing the left-wing critics of Obama. He called them "crazy."
In an interview with The Hill newspaper, Gibbs said of attacks on the administration from liberal Democrats: "I hear these people saying he’s like George Bush. Those people ought to be drug tested," Gibbs said. "I mean, it’s crazy."
Obama’s press secretary wasn’t through. He went on to dismiss the "professional Left" saying, "They will be satisfied when we have Canadian healthcare and we’ve eliminated the Pentagon. That’s not reality."
Ironically, we have wanted these same critics of George W. Bush drug tested for years. Finally, Robert Gibbs and we share some common ground.
Seriously, his behavior is paranoid. Webster’s defines paranoid as "characterized by suspiciousness, persecutory trends, or megalomania."
This pretty much captures the modus operandi of the Obama administration: never talk about your opponents’ arguments, just demonize them.
As the popularity of the "Messiah-in-Chief" continues to fall, White House staff is getting desperate to defend itself. They are lashing out at more people and voting groups. This is not the healthiest reaction when the country is teetering on the brink of a depression and mired in an endless war. Charges of incompetence made by radicals on the Left or us conservatives on the Right are accurate and appropriate.
Gibbs’ statements were quickly ripped to shreds by the left-wing blogs.
Glenn Greenwald at Salon called the comments, "one of the most petulant, self-pitying outbursts seen from a top political official in recent memory, half derived from a paranoid Richard Nixon rant and the other half from a Sean Hannity/Sarah Palin caricature of The Far Left."
Chris Bowers of the OpenLeft blog responded in a post headlined "Dear swing voters, you suck. Love, The White House." He wrote, "If the White House really doesn’t think it has any problems among self-identified liberals or progressives, and that all the complaints are coming from a grasstop elite, it needs to look at the data again."
All I have to say to these new left-wing opponents of Obama is, “Welcome to the cause.” I’m glad you agree with us now. Why don’t you join us in the impeachment effort, so we can end this nightmare called the Obama administration a few years early.
Obama Hates the Press and Journalists Can’t Handle That Truth
By Dan Gainor, Business & Media Institute
Love is a many splendored thing – except when the feeling isn’t mutual. Then, love stinks. That’s the position journalists find themselves in as their love for President Barack Obama has been a one-way street.
The rejection is much harsher than screening their calls. Obama has done everything to keep them away except take out a restraining order. The latest examples of mistreatment include actions by both the Defense Department and government agencies in the Gulf clean-up. In both cases, journalists have been restricted in ways that have made scribes scream.
No wonder they call it a “crush.”
The American media fell in love at first sight with Obama when he gave what CBS called his “electrifying” keynote speech before the 2004 Democratic National Convention. Then journalists wooed him throughout the presidential campaign – with election news stories looking like Democratic campaign ads. Now nearly a year-and-a-half into the marriage, they’ve discovered an awful truth about modern love – Obama is the most anti-press president in modern history.
Their love story gone bad is so heart-wrenching that it could be a country song about how he done them wrong. Only it’s not; these are current events.
Fawning press now gets cold shoulder from Obama
By Bryon York, Washington Examiner
Obama is pushing the press around
Will Barack Obama go an entire year without holding a formal news conference? He’s getting close: The president’s last full-scale session with the press was on July 22, 2009, which was 307 days ago.
When Obama last held a big news conference, there had not yet been terrorist attacks at Fort Hood, Detroit, and Times Square. Scott Brown was an unknown Massachusetts state senator. There was no national health care bill, much less national health care law. Tiger Woods appeared to be a model family man.
A lot can happen in 307 days, which is far longer than George W. Bush or Bill Clinton ever went between news conferences.
In its defense, the White House says Obama answers a lot of questions from reporters, just not in the traditional news-conference setting. In fact, the president does a lot of one-on-one interviews, frequently with sympathetic reporters. But even in terms of brief question-and-answer sessions with the White House press corps, he has still done fewer than Bush or Clinton.
More troubling is that Obama makes no secret of his disdain for the press. Just look at the scene in the Oval Office May 18, when Obama invited a few journalists to watch him sign a new bill — it just happened to be the Daniel Pearl Freedom of the Press Act.
"Speaking of press freedom, could you answer a couple of questions on BP?" CBS’s Chip Reid asked Obama after the signing.
"You’re certainly free to ask them, Chip," Obama said.
Obama Avoids Tough Questions from Press, Again
By Chip Reid, CBS
You may recall that on Monday President Obama refused take any questions from the press (irony alert!) immediately after signing the "Press Freedom Act" in the Oval Office. The president, who hasn’t held a prime time press conference since last July, said this was not a press conference and he would have something later in the week.
He was presumably referring to today’s scheduled "Joint Press Conference" with Mexican President Calderon in the Rose Garden. But so-called "press conferences" with foreign leaders usually allow for only two questions from the White House press corps and two from foreign reporters.
But today he said there was time for only one from each side. And in what I suspect was a White House effort to assure that the questioning was limited to immigration and other issues of U.S.-Mexico concern, he called on the Univision reporter from the U.S. side.
So if his goal was to avoid answering any tough questions about yesterday’s elections, or the oil spill in the Gulf, or financial regulation, or Iran, or Afghanistan — he succeeded.
As he and President Calderon turned to walk back toward the Oval Office I asked, loudly enough for him to hear, if he had any comment on the elections. No response.
I then shouted "Do you have any plans for a REAL press conference?" No response, not that I expected one.
