Obama’s presser
It’s a good thing Obama didn’t talk about anything important in his press conference tonight. Lynn Sweet derailed the whole goddamned thing by asking about the Gates arrest.
UPDATE: As Steve M at No More Mister Nice Blog notes, the conventional wisdom among the press corp is now etched in stone, as typified by Politico hack Ben Smith:
He never detailed his own plan, or named a single victim of America’s broken system, and he spoke largely in the abstractions of blue pills, red pills, and legislative processes.
Jesus God, did we watch the same press conference? Obama didn’t provide details like a prescription formulary and dependent beneficiary criteria—because the plan is still being hashed out! And what about this?
So let me be clear: This isn’t about me. I have great health insurance, and so does every Member of Congress. This debate is about the letters I read when I sit in the Oval Office every day, and the stories I hear at town hall meetings. This is about the woman in Colorado who paid $700 a month to her insurance company only to find out that they wouldn’t pay a dime for her cancer treatment – who had to use up her retirement funds to save her own life. This is about the middle-class college graduate from Maryland whose health insurance expired when he changed jobs, and woke up from emergency surgery with $10,000 in debt.
Those sound like examples of specific victims of the broken system to me. Does Smith want Social Security numbers and addresses? Maybe. But what he and the rest of the press corp really seem to crave is performance art. They don’t give a shit about policy. They want carrier landings and flight suits. God help us.
Posted by Betty Cracker on 07/22/09 at 10:41 PM • Permalink
Well, Obama should know what happened, since he and Gates are both black. Black people break into houses all the time, and laugh about how they did it when they think white people aren’t listening. For all intents and purposes, Obama “broke into” the White House by winning more votes than anyone else. And how did he get away with it? Because white people weren’t listening. Ipso facto, QED. I rest my case.
However, Gates made a dumb mistake breaking into the home of a Harvard professor. Did he think the police would actually believe he “lived there”? Get serious.
I sure hope Gates gave the cops a picture of his “Certification of Driver’s License” from the State of Hawaii. Ha-ha. Man, you give one of those people a suit and a desk, and the rest of them start acting like bosses. What a world.
Health Care Reform? Yeah, I heard something about that. I guess it’s a “big deal.”
Well, Obama should know what happened, since he and Gates are both black. Black people break into houses all the time, and laugh about how they did it when they think white people aren’t listening. For all intents and purposes, Obama “broke into” the White House by winning more votes than anyone else. And how did he get away with it? Because white people weren’t listening. Ipso facto, QED. I rest my case.
However, Gates made a dumb mistake breaking into the home of a Harvard professor. Did he think the police would actually believe he “lived there”? Get serious.
I sure hope Gates gave the cops a picture of his “Certification of Driver’s License” from the State of Hawaii. Ha-ha. Man, you give one of those people a suit and a desk, and the rest of them start acting like bosses. What a world.
Health Care Reform? Yeah, I heard something about that. I guess it’s a “big deal.”
Comment by StrangeAppar8us on 07/23/09 at 01:12 AM
I certainly hope you are being facetious…....
Comment by Jared Hyder on
07/23/09 at 02:49 AM
Thank you for your blog post on this, Betty Cracker!
My wife and I agree with you 1000% on this. We were beginning to feel that we were the only ones who felt this way, after hearing some of the on-air commentary and reading various news reports and blog comments afterwards. Good for Krugman!
It felt like WTF? Did people watch the same news conference and answers that we did?
And oh yeah, Lynn Sweet is a total ratfucker on this one. She knows damn well if that any commentary or questions about the Gates arrest would steal the headline. Greedy fuck! The whole press conference was about health care and almost every other question was at least on-topic. It is like the asshole who derails the comments on a blog post by trying to change the subject to something completely unrelated. Obama was kind enough to announce he would take one more question and she uses it to ratfuck him!
She knew full well what she was doing and that the media, which is more interested than encouraging infotainment and ginned up controversy than reporting actual factual news would eat it up and be all over it.
Health care is an extremely important need and issue in this country and Lynn Sweet is fucking all of us over by taking the focus off of something that really matters in order to hog the spotlight. Shame on her!
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