President Obamas first week; Open Government and bipartisanship
Three days into his term and President Obama has shown his desire to stretch across party lines to accomplish his goals. Well, no. Not really. He also seems bound and determined to alienate and aggravate the press corps.
First case. The AP mentioned in an off handed way that President Obama has shut photographers out of the Oval Office. It has been tradition to allow photographers access to the Presidents first day in office. President Obamas apparent insecurities did not permit this. Of course the press didn't stress the censuring of photographers. The actual story was three news agencies; The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse refused to carry the official photos doled out to them by the White House referring to them as "visual press releases".
"Using these photos would be a major break with established precedent
and would compromise the long-held tradition of independent photo
coverage of the president and the White House by the major news
agencies," said Courtney Dolan, spokeswoman for Thomson Reuters.
Michael Oreskes, managing editor for U.S. news at the AP stated, "We are hopeful of negotiating an amicable solution,"
Second case. President Obama was strolling through the West wing of the White House and entered the working area of the press corps. He apparently created quite a ruckus as he was not expected. Reporters being what they are jumped up and started asking questions.
Politico's Jonathan Martin asked the president about
his nominee for deputy secretary of defense, William Lynn. President Obama then stated, "I came down here to visit. I didn't come down here -- this is what
happens. I can't end up visiting you guys and shaking hands if I am
going to grilled every time I come down here," the president said.
Martin again asked the question of the President. At this point the President put his hand on Martins shoulder and looked him in the eye. "All right, come on" he said, with obvious irritation in his voice. "We
will be having a press conference, at which time you can feel free to
[ask] questions. Right now, I just wanted to say hello and introduce
myself to you guys -- that's all I was trying to do,"
He did however field easier questions from other reporters such as if he had located the gym yet and if he had tried out the basketball court.
Third case. President Obama has decided to take on the king of talk radio, Rush Limbaugh. Apparently while lecturing Republicans on Capital Hill he made the statement, "You can't just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done," he told top GOP leaders, whom he had invited to the White House to discuss his nearly $1 trillion stimulus package." I imagine Rush will get a fair amount of mileage from that remark.
White house spokesmen stated he was merely attempting to make a point about bipartisanship saying, "There are big things that unify Republicans and Democrats," the official said. "We shouldn't let partisan politics derail what are very important things that need to get done."
This is a very funny and ironic remark considering case number four.
Fourth case. When lawmakers met in the Roosevelt room to discuss the nearly one trillion dollar stimulus package, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Arizona) brought up the point of the proposals plan to increase benefits to low earning workers who don't pay income taxes. President Obama had only on statement to make, "I won, I will trump you on that." Hard not to when he has a majority Senate and House.
Nice example of how to cross party lines and extend the hand of bipartisanship there Mr President. And a couple of great examples of his promise of "open government". And this was only week one!
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Can't wait until one of the "selected" (gosh, sounds like the Left with GWB) reporters loses his place on a pre-'scripted' question and answers about "waterboarding", when the question concerned 'Relations with Hamas'.
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