Robert Gibbs’ Press Room: Where Laughter Goes To Die

No one’s laughing now, Robert Gibbs! Or at least they’re laughing a lot less. Patrick Gavin over at Politico has been counting the number of “(Laughter)” that show up in the official transcripts of White House press room briefings and in the last six months (when they last counted) they have dropped by almost half. So, should we chalk it up, as Gavin suggests, to the honeymoon being over and a “tough second half of 2009” or is it something more sinister?

“There definitely aren’t a lot of laughs around the briefing room these days,” says Washington Examiner White House correspondent Julie Mason. “Robert’s little digs and evasions have lost their power to amuse — particularly since we haven’t had a presser since July.”

Mason also reports frustration in the ranks: “Reporters know how close the press secretary is to the president, and yet the quality of the information we get doesn’t often reflect that.”

Call me crazy but I’m fairly certain the quality of the information any White House Press Corp. gets almost never reflects the relationship between the press secretary and the president. Though, Chip Reid also expressed similar frustration with Gibbs’ inner circle position and the lack of info he’s willing to impart. That said, I suspect it’s at least somewhat a matter of familiarity breeding contempt combined with a “beleaguered” press corp who is less than thrilled that the President seems to have chucked part of the press room performance these last seven months, namely a full presser (though he did take some questions the other day after his appearance during the regular daily briefing), to do an end run around the corps and straight to the public.

Or maybe it’s just that Robert Gibbs isn’t funny. His terribly inappropriate, Palin-inspired, writing on the hand stunt from earlier this week even elicited a sharp rebuke from Andrew Sullivan, who had this to say in a post titled ‘The Cheapness Of Robert Gibbs‘: “Really: this stunt is pathetic, demeaning and stupid – a disgrace to his office.”