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Thomas, Gibbs and Lack of Transparency

By LisaB on July 2, 2009 at 10:10 AM in Current Affairs

Mr. Transparency had a “townhall” meeting yesterday. Earlier, Obama Press secretary Robert Gibbs was asked about this upcoming “townhall” meeting. Both Chip Reid and Helen Thomas said that the “open forum” for the townhall meeting – as given to them – wasn’t open at all. The words “tightly controlled” were used.

While this kind of “transparency” isn’t actually a surprise, Robert Gibbs’ smarmy “discussion,” where he mugs, laughs and does his Oscar-level best not only to make the questioners seem petty but also to suggest the questions themselves are ridiculous, is beyond fail. Gibbs even suggests email is a better way of reaching Obama than talking to his getting-paid-for-what “press secretary.” Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil and nevermind-the-man-behind-the-curtain all rolled into one.

Notice Gibbs is laughing by himself. No one else finds this funny. I guess the old saying about “laugh and the world laughs with you” does have at least one exception.

I’ve had conversations with people like Gibbs. But they were adolescents who were trying to get away with something in my classroom.

According to CSNnews, Thomas stated afterward that not even Nixon tried to control the media like this.

Following a testy exchange during today’s briefing with White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas told CNSNews.com that not even Richard Nixon tried to control the press the way President Obama is trying to control the press.

“Nixon didn’t try to do that,” Thomas said. “They couldn’t control (the media). They didn’t try.

Thomas also did not like the HuffyPot’s planted question at the previous “press conference” with BO.

Thomas said she was especially concerned about the arrangement between the Obama Administration and a writer from the liberal Huffington Post Web site. The writer was invited by the White House to President Obama’s press conference last week on the understanding that he would ask Obama a question about Iran from among questions that had been sent to him by people in Iran.

“When you call the reporter the night before you know damn well what they are going to ask to control you,” Thomas said.

WaPo discusses the “townhall” in this piece. They note the statecraft involved but, unfortunately, don’t go into what that might mean to the event itself.

In the stage-managed event, questions for Obama came from a live audience selected by the White House and the college, and from Internet questions chosen by the administration’s new-media team. Of the seven questions the president answered, four were selected by his staff from videos submitted to the White House Web site or from those responding to a request for “tweets.”
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The president called randomly on three audience members. All turned out to be members of groups with close ties to his administration: the Service Employees International Union, Health Care for America Now, and Organizing for America, which is a part of the Democratic National Committee. White House officials said that was a coincidence.

The only thing transparent here is the bs.