All the World’s Obama’s Stage

By Examiner Staff Writer
Published July 22, 2008 4:00am ET
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And, all the press merely players. Andrea Mitchell breaks the silence on Barack Obama’s treatment of press during his overseas trip. She’ll likely be hazed forthwith by fellow media types for not taking her lumps and reporting glowingly on Obama no matter what the circumstances:

MITCHELL: Let me just say something about the message management.  He didn’t have reporters with him, he didn’t have a press pool, he didn’t do a press conference while he was on the ground in either Afghanistan or Iraq. What you’re seeing is not reporters brought in.  You’re seeing selected pictures taken by the military, questions by the military, and what some would call fake interviews, because they’re not interviews from a journalist.  So, there’s a real press issue here.  Politically it’s smart as can be.  But we’ve not seen a presidential candidate do this, in my recollection, ever before.

He also doesn’t take questions from foreign press. Probably because, when he does take questions, even about the most obvious of issues, his answers come out like this flub-fest:

Q: If you had to do it over again, knowing what you know now, would you support the surge? A: No, because, keep in mind that… Q: You wouldn’t? A: Keep in mind… These kinds of hypotheticals are very difficult. Hindsight is 20/20. But I think that, what I’m absolutely convinced of, is that at that time we had to change the political debate because the view of the Bush administration at that time was one that I just disagreed with.

Really? He didn’t have a better answer prepared than this? Surely, he knew he’d get this question and yet he knows he can get away with this. The question has been dutifully asked and answered, and the press will likely lay off, bestowing upon him their entire stock of benefit of the doubt. I know the game of “Imagine if a Republican pulled this” is an old one, but just imagine the drubbing Bush would have taken in the press for choreographing something this intricately, shielding himself from questions so consistently, and edited interviews for release.

Luckily, we don’t have to imagine, as there was a 2005 press conference that got the entire press corps’ dander up for far less orchestration. It was the eve of the Iraqi people’s vote on their constitution, and the president held a teleconference with a group of soldiers in Baghdad, asking a few questions and letting them have their say about what was happening on the ground. The Pentagon arranged the teleconference and Allison Barber, deputy assistant secretary of defense, worked with the soldiers before the cameras went on about what kinds of questions the president might ask and how to pass the microphone around without strangling each other.

There was no evidence that the White House or Pentagon coached the soldiers in their actual answers, though the soldiers themselves were undoubtedly picked carefully. A soldier in on the call, who also happens to be a blogger rejected the idea of coaching entirely:

First of all, we were told that we would be speaking with the President of the United States, our Commander-in-Chief, President Bush, so I believe that it would have been totally irresponsible for us NOT to prepare some ideas, facts or comments that we wanted to share with the President.We were given an idea as to what topics he may discuss with us, but it’s the President of the United States; He will choose which way his conversation with us may go.We practiced passing the microphone around to one another, so we wouldn’t choke someone on live TV. We had an idea as to who we thought should answer what types of questions, unless President Bush called on one of us specifically.

Nonetheless, the “staged” event was excoriated by the press for several days of news cycle, including stories like this one in Newsday ($ for link):

It was billed as a folksy question-and-answer session in which President George W. Bush would talk to soldiers about their activities in Iraq and assure them of popular support.But the teleconference turned out to be a carefully rehearsed, relentlessly upbeat media event.”OK, so let’s just walk through this,” said Deputy Assistant Defense Secretary Allison Barber, coaching the soldiers in Tikrit before the conference.”Capt. Kennedy, you answer the first question and you hand the mike to whom?””Capt. Smith,” Kennedy said.”Capt. Smith, you take the mike and you hand it to whom?” she asked.”Capt. Kennedy,” the soldier replied.”If the question comes up about partnering – how often do we train with the Iraqi military – who does he go to?” Barber asked.”That’s going to go to Capt. Pratt,” one soldier said.And so it went.

I await similarly snarky copy about Obama’s World Tour 2008. Unfortunately, they’ll all be entirely too busy rehashing that time Obama hit a three-pointer on his first try in Kuwait and how all the troops cheered for him. Wasn’t that amazing???!!!1!!! “Nothing but net for Obama on foreign policy trip, lulz!”

Update: Everywhere you look, deferring of questions…

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