Helen Thomas has been a long time fixture amongst the White House press corps. Chip Reid, CBS reporter, is younger but still experienced in the ways of Washington, and opined along the following lines as Thomas.
Her recent exchange with Robert Gibbs regarding the pre-screened questions from invited or screened audience members at a pending town hall meeting with Barack Obama, appeared to quash the White House’s election mantra of a new kind of open and accessible government in Washington.
“The point is the control from here. We have never had that in the White House. And we have had some control but not this control. I mean I’m amazed, I’m amazed at you people who call for openness and transparency and have controlled…” veteran White House reporter Helen Thomas said Wednesday.
A faltering Gibbs, with plenty of anxious laughter, was handily placed in a corner over his employer’s inability to speak extemporaneously at a town hall meeting. Choreography and presentation with all the coyly pre-researched and delivered answers, is the true modus operandi of Obama. An OPEN town hall meeting will NOT ensure a smooth show for Obama, therefore everything must be tightly controlled making it a closed forum in reality.
Hot Air precisely labeled the planned questioners.
de facto plants of the most transparent administration evah.
Is the reality starting to settle in for mainstream media?
Reporters Grill Gibbs Over Prepackaged Questions for Obama
July 01, 2009
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early years education » Blog Archive » Staten Islanders Complain About How Torn Up They Are // July 5, 2009 at 11:05 pm
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