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Gibbs hammered over planted questioner

By: Dan Spencer (Diary)  |  June 25th, 2009 at 06:01 AM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

President Obama’s press secretary, Robert Gibbs, was beat up by the White House press corps over the “planted questioner” at Obama’s press conference.

At Wednesday’s White House briefing, Gibbs insisted over and over again that Nico Pitney from the Huffington Post was not a planted questioner. When it was suggested, as I did yesterday, that the Obama plant was similar to the Hillary campaign planting questions during the Democrats’ presidential primary, (at about the 5:53 mark in the following video), Mr. Gibbs went into a “no, no, no, no” rebuttal:

To borrow a famous line from Shakespeare, Gibbs doth protest too much.

At the New York Times, Kate Phillips wrote Gibbs “insisted that Mr. Pitney wasn’t a ‘planted questioner,’ despite the fact that the HuffPo blogger had gotten a rare heads-up the night before that he might be called upon.”

Phillips explains that the significance of Obama’s planted questioner scandal is that it transforms Mr. Pitney into an advocate for the Obama agenda:

The problem is not just that Mr. Pitney, for just one day, was afforded a cherished seat in the room or given an airing for his question. And no one is diminishing his work that has drawn accolades for his devoted attention to an issue. Rather, the criticism is that he was cherry-picked, with a call-upon hours and hours beforehand, and handed a status that no one among the so-called elite of the press corps receives on any given day.

While that may indeed be a thorn in the feet of the corps who toil daily, the perception of a favored one who got exceptionally advance notice may send signals — far and wide — as to what lengths the administration will go to stage and control the message the president wants to send.

That is what has gotten lost in all the old vs. new media antagonisms. It’s not about Mr. Pitney’s work or for that matter, the question he asked. It’s about how the administration finagled the position in which he became an actor for the president’s agenda.

Does Obama truly expect the media to support his presidency with planted questioners? Has the main stream media’s unprecedented infatuation with Obama changed things that much?

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  • 6eorge Jetson

  • WarEagle01

    If he didn’t work for HufPo I would feel sorry for him.

  • randy streu

    Gibbs offers spin and excuses (badly, as is Gibbs’ way), but he hasn’t actually “denied” the plant. Just sayin’.

    • randy streu

      nt.

  • bk

    What a joke.

  • http://www.RedState.com/ETCartman Kenny Solomon

    …..his going off on a reporter or ten (staying ‘oh so classy’ of course), abruptly storming off the platform/stage, or maybe even (does he dare ?) clearing the press room.

    Heck of a ptessure job to start with. But I’m guessing that having to protect some stuff that’s borderline indefensible makes the gig a tad more tedious.

  • icbm

    On this point, Gibbs is right, and the press is just trying to protect its turf. It’s about power, not principle.

    Meanwhile, the boys at PowerLine made a good point:

    “By tipping Pitney off that he would likely get to pose a question, the White House increased the likelihood that Pitney would carefully select the best possible question. As for Obama, he gained no substantive advantage from knowing that one of his questions about Iran would be from a dissident, via Pitney.

    “Perhaps Pitney’s moment in the sun will encourage members of the White House press corps from traditional media outlets to use the internet to get ahead of the curve.”

    http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/06/023886.php

    • The_Gadfly

      Since the conversation or conversations Pitney had with Obama are not on record, there is no proof, and no cause to believe that Pitney did not also inform Obama what his exact question would be, so that not only would Pitney have the best question, but Obama would have the best answer.

      And no, Pitney saying that he did not do that is not proof that he did not. He lost all claim to credibility when he accepted the proffer from The Big 0.

      • icbm

        And even better proof is that the question was the hardest one at the press conference. Obama would never have allowed it had he been able to dictate the content of the question.

        You’re going too far. Obama is usually wrong – usually horribly wrong – but not on this one.

  • The_Gadfly

    he joins Dan Rather at the old reporters home railing about how his lies revealed greater truths than the lies themselves.

    And I’m not sure I don’t feel the same way about ABC.

  • wesmorgan

    Finally–and most importantly–from the political/diplomatic front, think about what this represents. Despite its shortcomings, we still have the freest press in the world, and its reach circumnavigates the globe. By bringing in someone from outside the traditional media AND showing how they are a conduit for information to and from Iranians, we sent a pretty strong message to Iran’s ruling elite, namely this: The genie has left the bottle. They can no longer exert iron-fisted control over information entering or leaving their country, and they can no longer impose silence and isolation. The paths by which a “typical Iranian” can reach the ears of the world–even those of the President of the United States–have grown and multiplied beyond their ability to control. THAT is a significant message, despite its subtle delivery, and it’s one that the traditional media missed completely in all their clucking about protocol and ‘staged questions.’

    Besides, take a look at the question itself:

    ?Under which conditions would you accept the election of Ahmadinejad, and if you do accept it without any significant changes in the conditions there, isn’t that a betrayal of the? of what the demonstrators there are working towards??

    That was, by a long shot, the toughest question asked at the press conference; it cut across political and diplomatic lines and pointed toward a hard truth. If you ask me, those other reporters may be somewhat embarrassed that an unknown Iranian asked a far better question than did they.

  • TNJim

    that we begin to see “reporters” from Kos, Salon, Media Matters, you name it at these press conferences. Then it won’t matter if questions are planted or not, they’ll all be softball stuff. After all, this administration is all about using the “New Media” to get its message out. Of course, that’s an awfully small room to be adding even a few more people to, but I guess they could solve that by “forgetting” to invite guys like Garrett, Tapper, you know, those hardball players, who would be anyone who’s made Obama squirm in past press conferences.

    • wesmorgan

      …let’s not forget the trailblazing role of Jeff Gannon/Guckert/whatever-his-name-was…[chuckle]

      Did you really think that question a softball?

      • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

        Yeah. That’s enough out of you.

        • TNJim

          My first clue should have been his post above. Didn’t mean to feed the troll.

      • TNJim

        Well, perhaps not. I am interested where the quote you posted above came from. I think the question posed by Garrett was tougher (what did take him so long?). Having said that it still was a plant, despite all the rebuttal Gibbs tries to make about it. They may not have known what the actual question was going to be, but I’m still suspicious. He still pretty much danced around with the answer.

        This isn’t the first time he’s called on a Huffpo “reporter” either. That question was one you might expect from a lefty blogger. Still, since all the news organizations there probably had heard from Iranians via twitter, YouTube, and other similar means, why Huffpo?

        I just get suspicious when a lefty blogger from a site that has been in the tank for Obama from the beginning seems to get favorable treatment at a press conference.

        When is Erick or someone else from here going to get their invitation?

        • redstatebluestate123

          Obama will never invite Erick to a press conference, just as Bush would never have invited Markos Moulitsas.

          • TNJim

            It was about taking Bush 43 into the new briefing room and pointing out where the reporters from the different news orgs would be seated. Most of the networks, the AP, Reuters, all the majors would be pretty much right in front of him or to one side. When asked about the other side of the room, apparently where all the extreme leftys would be, Snow replied, “Oh, don’t go there, sir. That’s Siberia.”

            Of course, given how most of the majors treated Bush the whole room was pretty much Siberia…