White House Jay Carney’s “credibility gap” over Obama Mideast speech
Yesterday’s Presidential Mideast speech may have caused collateral damage to White House press secretary Jay Carney. White House reporters today feel burned by Carney’s earlier absolute denial that the president would call for Israel to withdraw to pre-1967 borders.
Two days before the speech Carney rejected an Israeli press report alleging the president would call for an Israeli withdrawal to pre-1967 borders. He flatly told White House reporters the news account, reported by Pajamas Media was “completely false.” But by the end of the yesterday’s speech, it was clear that what was deceptive was Carney’s denial.
As today’s Politico noted, the new Obama policy “surprised reporters.” The incident raises questions about Carney’s credibility and his “insider” status at White House. Was Carney lying or, more benevolently, was he “out of the loop?” After press secretary Robert Gibbs left, Carney was not offered the same access to meetings. Instead he has to report to Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer.
Last January the Daily Beast’s Lloyd Grove suggested that second class status could give Carney problems saying “he’s not an Obama insider—hardly an advantage when toiling for an insular politician who is naturally wary of newcomers and relies on a tight circle of advisers and intimates. Some White House veterans, including at least one former presidential press secretary, worry that Carney won’t receive the necessary access to Obama, and other policymakers at key meetings, to speak from the podium with the authority that Gibbs unquestionably enjoyed.”
Underlying all of the grumbling is a larger problem of White House access to reporters. Since the inauguration White House reporters have quietly suffered levels of secrecy, hostility and denial of access. Some reporters who filed critical stories have experienced retaliation reminiscent of the Nixon administration. Last year Politico reporter Josh Gerstein reviewed the White House hostility, citing the retaliation as an ugly surprise. He wrote:
“The ferocity of pushback is intense. A routine press query can draw a string of vitriolic e-mails. A negative story can draw a profane high-decibel phone call or worse. Some reporters feel like they’ve been frozen out after crossing the White House.”
Angering reporters has been a new policy enforced by the White House and at the Democratic National Committee to bar reporters from covering campaign fundraising events. In some broadcaster pools reporters would be blocked; in others print reporters would be barred. Long time CBS White House reporter Mark Knoller is one of the critics of the lack of transparency. As Politico noted:
“It’s been a bit of a lonely vigil lately for Mark Knoller of CBS News. At the White House and on Twitter, he’s pushing for wider press access to President Obama’s fundraisers — so far with no luck.”
In April only two of six Obama fundraisers were open to radio and TV coverage. During the President’s recent California trip, the San Francisco Chronicle was threatened with expulsion from pool coverage of Bay Area fundraisers after one of its reporters video taped Wiki-Leak protesters at a campaign fundraiser. After the report, the White House denied it had ever conveyed a threat to the newspaper. Earlier this month the White House tried to limit a Boston Herald reporter from covering an Obama fundraiser on the grounds the reporter was “biased.”
Noted CBS’s Knoller, “It’s no way to do business — especially covering a candidate who prides himself on transparency, in a highly consequential campaign, where he’s expected to raise a billion dollars for reelection. Many of his events are in hotels and restaurants.”
This week’s deception by Carney had White House reporters scratching their heads. They were not sure if he was lying to them, being clever or does not have key access to decision making. None of the conclusions are flattering.
And yet none of the MSM outlets are making an issue of it. In fact, it’s not even being mentioned, much less as an in depth story.
If the Bush White House had treated the press like this, it would be front page news for a month of Sunday’s.
They are being treated as campaign workers, because they ARE campaign workers. The Democratic Party demands absolute fealty from the lapdog media, you may NOT ask one tough question, you may NOT write one critical statement, you may NOT step outside the role of slobbering lackey.
They should remember well the difference between a JournOlist and a journalist.
This is a Party that wouldn’t win a national election EVER…if they didn’t have a 15point “fix” in …every election. Keeping the “fix” in place…means having to roll up those newspapers and swat a few backsides whenever the lapdogs soil the rug.
Sit, rollover and fetch. Get a scratch on your tummy and a tingle up your leg.
Reporters who want to tell us how they are suffering with a BO presidency? This is an occasion for glee and celebration.
Our national press cohort fell all over themselves trying not to cover anything negative about BO during the campaigns, and ever since. At the same time, they were huddled together assembling the group’s agreed-upon “here’s why Republicans suck” stories. I imagine the weeks following BO’s election were one long group orgasm for them.
They are all complicit in this craven prostitution of the role they had promised to play – the role of gatherer of all information, good and bad – and they all deserve to be shat upon until they’ve all retired and made way for the next generation.
Unless some reporter made a name for herself for calling out the favoritism shown to BO by her profession, they ALL deserve to have their names remembered as whores. Normally, the burden of proof should rest with an accuser. In this case, the deception was so universal, the complicity so complete, let them try to clear their own names if they can.
They can’t.
I’m not sure it’s fair to tag Carney with this one. The press reported that the Prez was late stepping up to podium by something like half an hour or more, because he was huddled with his speech writers making last minute changes — which were said to center directly on decisions about pitching the 1967 borders over strenuous Israeli objections. Carney is this Administration’s Scott McClellan, totally outside of the loop. Unlike Robert Gibbs, I think he would actually like to answer reporters’ questions, but unfortunately, he’s got nothing but the talking points he’s been handed to work with. Unfortunately, the press apparently prefers to focus on Carney’s competence and/or honesty, instead of reporting that the White House has blatantly hung him out to dry.
Some thoughts:
- Hey, MSM, no one respects a whore.
- When it is all politics, all the time, you cannot make a categorical denial without risking being hung out to dry. The position can literally change hourly. It is the difference between politics and principles.
- If I were a Republican President, I would ban folks in retaliation, too. No need aiding and abetting dishonest journalists. However, there would be no angry phone calls or emails. Why would I be angry about them? It’s not like I would be expecting them to be shilling for me.
A “gap” sorta like the “Grand Gap” in Arizona.
Honestly, I don’t expect to see Carney stay in this post long…He’s been hung out to dry so many times already. His performance has also been, IMHO, a small snapshot of the current admin’s less than stellar handling of pretty much everything. Just a total mess.