By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 1, 2009
8:02 AM
Perhaps only Barack Obama could cheerfully cast a bankruptcy filing as "a new lease on life."
There was the president, telling the country that he is pushing Chrysler into Chapter 11 but that its partnership with Fiat has "a strong chance of success . . . one more step on a path toward Chrysler's revival." Plus, he told potential buyers, "your warranty will be safe."
I half-expected him to add, "And if you act now I'll knock a thousand bucks off the sticker price."
This, as he demonstrated at his prime-time presser the other night, is one smooth fellow.
And then we have Joe Biden on the "Today" show. The vice president is sent out to deliver the administration's message on swine flu, which is absorbing 23-1/2 hours a day on cable news and is the lead every night for Brian, Charlie and Katie. And he proceeds to insert all five toes into his mouth.
VPOTUS says he would tell his family not to go anywhere in a confined space: "If you're in a confined aircraft when one person sneezes it goes all the way through the aircraft. That's me. I would not be, at this point, if they had another way of transportation, suggesting they ride the subway."
Yikes! Matt Lauer, in a rare fumble, fails to follow up. But the clip replays all morning, the travel industry goes nuts and the White House rushes out a statement backing off the Biden advice.
ABC's Jake Tapper presses Robert Gibbs: "Representatives of the travel industry have accused the vice president of coming close to fear-mongering because of these comments. I'm wondering if you wanted to clarify or correct or apologize for the remarks that he made."
"Well, I think the--what the vice president meant to say . . . "
You get the drift.
I happen to like unscripted politicians. I've known Biden a long time and he is a very engaging guy. But he has a remarkable tendency to go off script. (Remember him saying that Obama was a "clean" and "articulate" candidate, and later, that his running mate would be "tested" by an international crisis?) When the media are hyperventilating over a new disease, it's not the best time to start freelancing.
Will the White House keep Biden off television for fear he will start more brushfires? And will the media start depicting him as a gaffe machine?
"Give Joe a break," says Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass. "All he did was act like any average American programmed by the hysterical news coverage. On cable TV, the subtext of every show is, 'We're All Gonna Die, and Pigs Will Become the Superior Race and Rule the Earth!' "
The New York Post, with its usual subtlety, puts Biden's face on a pig:
"Biden's latest bone-headed remark ignited a firestorm of criticism and scared Obama administration officials into issuing comments rebutting the gaffe-prone veep."
The bloggers have their fun. At Just One Minute, Tom Maguire posts under the headline "Now Ask Him If Stupidity Is Contagious":
"They told me that if I voted for McCain we'd have a vice president who was a moron . . . Don't you hate it when the VP goes rogue?"
Commentary's Jennifer Rubin is not amused:
"What do we think this mega-gaffe will cost in lost travel and business disruption? In comparison to the $300,000 or so New York fly-over this may be real money. Moreover, perhaps this would be a good time to send Biden on the funeral circuit and give up the pretense that he is a wise counselor."
Steve Benen doesn't defend him at the Washington Monthly:
"Vice President Biden has a reputation for making remarks he shouldn't say in public. The reputation is well deserved . . .
"Having the vice president tell a national television audience it's a bad idea to fly and ride the subway is not only unhelpful, it also goes much further than government recommendations to the public."
Post-Presser PraiseTo paraphrase senator-to-be Al Franken, they like him, they really like him. Roger Simon explores one of the president's secrets:
"Some things are better after 100 days. Cheese. Caterpillars. Barack Obama.
"He started off with such high hopes and grave problems that it was only logical to assume he had no place to go but down.
"It hasn't turned out that way. He wrapped up his 100th day in office Wednesday with a town hall meeting in the morning and a news conference in the evening that showed what his first months in office have demonstrated: a remarkable degree of command and self-assurance, especially from someone who less than four and a half years ago was a state senator . . .
"In an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll that was taken April 23-26, an incredible 81 percent of adults in America said they liked Obama personally. According to the poll, '51 percent like him personally and approve of most of his policies, and another 30 percent like him personally but disapprove of his policies.'
"Got that? Nearly a third of those people who disapprove of what Obama is doing still like Obama! I wish I could get that deal. Everybody wishes they could get that deal."
At Slate, John Dickerson sees a method to the madness:
"Obama insisted several times during the evening that he was not an interventionist. 'I don't want to run auto companies. I don't want to run banks. I've got two wars I've got to run already . . . I want to disabuse people of this notion that somehow we enjoy meddling in the private sector. If you could tell me that when I walked into this office, that the banks were humming; the autos were selling; and that all you had to worry about was Iraq, Afghanistan, North Korea, getting health care passed, figuring out how to deal with energy independence, deal with Iran and a pandemic flu--I would take that deal. That's why I'm always amused when I hear these, you know, criticisms of, 'Oh, you know, Obama wants to grow government.'
"The point of this protestation is to blunt Republican attacks, of course, particularly on the issue of the budget deficit, which will grow as a result of all of this activity. But it's also to make everything he's doing to expand government--including the reorientation of priorities in his budget--seem like a necessary reaction to an emergency situation. If it's an emergency, it's harder to argue against."
There was, however, a missing question, as the Weekly Standard's Mary Katherine Ham reminds us:
"The president declined to take his $21.5 million worth of prime-time TV coverage to say, 'Hey, sorry for using Air Force One to re-create 9/11. Mix-up at the office.' No reporter in the room availed himself of the opportunity to ask Obama about the $329,000 terror attack run-through, surely figuring that it was totally worth it for the 'investment' in lowering future health care costs by making New Yorkers sprint through the streets in gut-wrenching panic."
Not EnchantedThe most controversial question, hands down, was the NYT's Jeff Zeleny asking what had surprised, enchanted, humbled and troubled Obama. Which brought this rebuke from the Daily Beast's Reihan Salam:
"Jeff Zeleny is one of America's most celebrated young journalists . . . He achieved a new pinnacle of excellence by subjecting President Barack Obama, a happily married man with two children, to the equivalent of an eHarmony questionnaire . . .
"But it was President Obama who did most of the enchanting Wednesday night. At the end of his third White House press conference, the president wryly explained that he wasn't out to meddle in the private sector. If all he had to contend with were 'Iraq, Afghanistan, North Korea, getting health care passed, figuring out how to deal with energy independence, deal with Iran, and a pandemic flu,' he would 'take that deal.' And the assembled members of the press corps laughed with Obama, which was telling.
"The political right, lest we forget, is convinced that Obama's aggressive intervention in the economy reflects a statist--some would say socialist--mind-set. Yet I got the impression that no one at the press conference took that idea seriously, and not just because of Obama's sardonic wit. There is a real and growing sense that Obama is a post-ideological figure, which is another way of saying that he is successfully moving the American center to the left . . .
"The far harder question for conservatives is how do you make anything stick to the new Teflon president?"
Teflon: I haven't heard that word since the Reagan years.
A word about Zeleny: The question may have been a softball, but it produced the night's most interesting answer. And the former Chicago Tribune reporter, who has covered Obama for years, is one of the best White House chroniclers.
Job VacancyNBC and NPR broke the news last night that Justice David Souter is retiring, and it didn't take long for the press to start the guessing game:
L.A. Times: "Since the court has only one woman among its nine justices, most observers have predicted that Obama will select a woman for the first court opening. There is no obvious successor to Souter, and the administration has had just three months to sift through potential nominees."
NYT: "Confirmation battles for the Supreme Court in recent years have proved to be intensely partisan and divisive moments in Washington, but Mr. Obama has more leeway than his predecessors because his party holds such a strong majority in the Senate . . .
Among the names that have been floated in recent months are Elena Kagan, whom Mr. Obama named as his solicitor general."
Boston Globe: "Longtime court watchers have speculated that if Obama made an early pick for the Supreme Court, he would look seriously at appeals-court judges Diane Wood, a 58-year-old Bill Clinton appointee who, like Obama, taught at the University of Chicago Law School."
Andrew Gets AttentionThe Huffington Post asks: "Is Barack Obama reading blogs, particularly the site of one of his campaign's most committed supporters, Andrew Sullivan?
"At his press conference on Wednesday evening, the president defended his decision to end the use of torture on detainees, by citing an article he had recently read, in which it was noted that during World War II, Winston Churchill refused to use such tactics on the spies captured by the British."
Sullivan had written that piece, and the White House confirms that the president had read it.
But wait! The Guardian's Michael Tomasky finds a flaw in the narrative:
"I thought Obama was his usual masterful self Wednesday night at his press conference. It's just so nice to have an intelligent and reflective human being running the free world. I'm well aware that it's hardly news that Tomasky thinks Obama did well, so I'll end my general observations there.
"But the president did make one glaring error. He said, when discussing torture, that he'd read an article recently saying how Churchill, at the height of the blitz, said of Great Britain 'we don't torture.'
"He may well have read such an article, and Churchill may well have made such a statement. But Britain did torture."
Here is the Guardian piece Tomasky is citing:
"The London Cage was used partly as a torture centre, inside which large numbers of German officers and soldiers were subjected to systematic ill-treatment."
Live and In ColorWhat's it like to be in one of these East Room extravaganzas? Marc Ambinder confesses he smuggled in a bottle of water, then sets the scene just before Obama walked out:
"There's a moment -- usually with about two minutes to go -- where four or five network correspondents, standing feet apart, talk over each other, saying much the same thing. Then you hear the voice of CBS's Mark Knoller, who gives a last minute radio update. Then the same from ABC's Ann Compton.
"Ed Henry finished his stand-up early. Only NBC's Chuck Todd and CBS's Chip Reid were left standing.
"Chuck groaned. He knew that he and Chip were about to stumble over one another.
"Chuck then realized that everyone was looking at him. He informed his producer of this. Then he joked that someone was going to Twitter the conversation. (I did.)
"Chip, who has sworn off Twitter and has never been on Facebook, dryly wondered how many people would read it.
"Chuck misheard Chip, thinking that Chip was talking about ratings. So Chuck struck back, saying something like: 'Do we really want to get into a ratings comparison?' Everyone from the photogs to members of Obama's staff said 'Oooooh.' "
Ladies and gentlemen, your media in action.
Elizabeth SpeaksIt was only a matter of time before we heard Elizabeth Edwards's side of the Rielle affair, and now her book is about to hit the stores.
"Campaign cad John Edwards' cheating ways made his wife, Elizabeth, sick to her stomach -- literally," the Daily News reports.
"After the former presidential hopeful confessed his betrayal, Elizabeth Edwards writes in her new book, 'I cried and screamed, I went to the bathroom and threw up.' . . .
"She had actually wanted him to quit the race to protect the family. Edwards admitted the hanky-panky to her days after declaring his candidacy in 2006 -- almost a year before the National Enquirer reported it."
Wow. So she knew. And still played the part of the loyal wife.
"Even when Edwards confessed to his wife, he lied, claiming he had slipped up just once, Elizabeth writes. His original version of the story 'left most of the truth out,' she writes."
A modified, limited hangout. And no, she doesn't address the baby's paternity.
National Magazine AwardsThe winners for general excellence are, by circulation: Reader's Digest; Field & Stream; Wired; Texas Monthly; and Foreign Policy, recently bought by The Washington Post Co. Also, the New Yorker won three, Esquire won three, Wired won two others, and the New York Times Magazine and Rolling Stone took home Ellies.
Searching for SwaggaYou've probably seen video of CNN's T.J. Holmes declaring that Barack Obama "just has a bit of a swagger that is familiar to black men." That gets the ridicule treatment from National Review's Mark Hemingway:
"Evidence of 'swagga' offered by the panel included: Obama being corrected by his wife during an interview and accepting it graciously; and, Obama hugging people.
"My other favorite bit -- CNN anchor Kyra Phillips teased the segment by saying, 'If you look closely, you might notice the commander in chief has more swagger than Mick Jagger . . . ' That's some fine journalism, right there . . .
"UPDATE -- A reader asks, 'Wasn't it just yesterday that a swaggering president was a bad thing?' The answer to that is clearly yes."
Yes, well, that was Texas swagger. An entirely different strain.
Daily Show DummyI just saw Jon Stewart retract something he had said. He never does that. Oh--he said Harry Truman was a war criminal. Jon's right--that was exactly what he said it was: dumb.
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