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Robert Gibbs Spars with Les Kinsolving About Obama Press Conferences

video

by Tommy Christopher | 12:29 pm, May 4th, 2010

» 26 comments

Now, there’s something you don’t see every day.

At yesterday’s briefing, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs turned the tables on World Net Daily correspondent Les Kinsolving, grilling Les for nearly five minutes over what constitutes a press conference. Even stranger, about halfway through their exchange, Kinsolving actually drew applause from the press corps. I haven’t seen a reaction like that since Gibbs suggested holding a briefing in the Rose Garden.

Les started out by asking why the President hasn’t held a press conference since last July, at which point Gibbs decided to get into the weeds about whether the 8 questions the President took at April’s Nuclear Security Summit constituted a press conference. Lester then offered suggestions on how to conduct briefings and press conferences, to rousing cheers:

I don’t often find myself in agreement with World Net Daily staff, but where presidential press conferences are concerned, I think they are far too staged. As any White House reporter would, I will always come down in favor of the White House facing more questions, from more reporters.

Here’s a transcript of the exchange:

Les Kinsolving: Only two questions, Robert.

MR. GIBBS: It’s early in the week, Lester, but I’m ready.

Les Kinsolving:   Thank you very much. In view of President Franklin Roosevelt’s 998 press conferences, why has President Obama held not a single White House press conference since last July?

MR. GIBBS: Lester, what would you — let me ask you this. Can I ask you just — I just have one question.

Les Kinsolving:   You can ask me as many as you wish.

MR. GIBBS: Excellent. I’m just going to use one. When the President took eight questions from members of the White House press corps at the Nuclear Security Summit at the Washington Convention Center, what would you call that?

Les Kinsolving:   That was not a press conference.

MR. GIBBS: What would you call it?

Les Kinsolving:   It was a select few.

MR. GIBBS: A select few what?

Les Kinsolving:   A select few reporters. It was not a White House press conference. That was my question.

MR. GIBBS: Well, can I ask another question? I do want to — I’m going to –

Les Kinsolving:   Of course you can.

MR. GIBBS: I’m going to — can I take Chip’s thing and just ask one more? What differently do you think the President would have done at the Nuclear Security Summit in taking the eight questions from members of the White House press corps that might have denoted — might have tripped your definition of a press conference?

Les Kinsolving:   It would be a wonderful thing if he had allowed all reporters — just it would be wonderful if you would allow these front-rowers two questions and then go all the way back to the back and then come back and let them start again. That would be fair. (Laughter and applause.) Thank you very much.

MR. GIBBS: Lester, you’re a happy occupant of the front row today and I hope that you will –

Les Kinsolving:   No, it’s not the front row, it’s the second row.

MR. GIBBS: Front rows today — pardon me. I hope that you’ll take the opportunity to speak with each one of these members individually. Now, I didn’t — I don’t — I hope you didn’t dodge my second question.

Les Kinsolving:   No, I try not to dodge.

MR. GIBBS: Okay, I just — I’m trying to figure out — the President answered eight questions from the White House press corps. Unclear — I will admit –

Les Kinsolving:   But only eight of them — only eight selected.

MR. GIBBS: Okay, so how many unselected would it have checked your box as to being a White House press conference?

Les Kinsolving:   I think that if he wanted a press conference, he would have invited all of us, not just a select few, which he does so often.

MR. GIBBS: Lester, I don’t — were you at the event? Did you apply for credentials to come to the event?

Les Kinsolving:   I would be delighted if I thought there was any chance. (Laughter.)

MR. GIBBS: No, no, but I asked you, did you apply for credentials to come to the event?

Les Kinsolving:   No, I did not.

MR. GIBBS: So you were offered the opportunity but declined to do so? I don’t know if you saw the hall that we were in — it’s a whole lot bigger than where we are. It’s a whole lot bigger than the East Room.

Les Kinsolving:   – you only had eight.

MR. GIBBS: There were a whole lot of people there. Again, I just — can you give me a number? Is it a number thing that would — you think if we would have — if it wasn’t eight, it maybe was like nine?

Les Kinsolving:   Well, there’s 47 that are here today.

MR. GIBBS: So 47 –

Les Kinsolving:   Sitting, and eight more standing.

MR. GIBBS: Right, so 47 and 8 is 55. So the President would have taken — if the President took 55 questions, would that have –

Les Kinsolving:   John Kennedy took 20 — no, 38 questions in his first press conference. You remember that, don’t you?

MR. GIBBS: So it’s not 55 — it’s not eight, it’s not 55, it’s 38?

Les Kinsolving:   Can I go to my second question?

MR. GIBBS: No, I’m just trying to get an answer to my second question. (Laughter.) I suddenly have found this to be wildly amusing.

Les Kinsolving:   You’re an enormously amusing man.

MR. GIBBS: And inexplicably, I’m finding this to be equally amusing. I’m just trying to — just help me out, Lester, because we’ve now established that 55 is probably a lot, right? Thirty-eight you said Kennedy took — so that could be an early entrant for the number of questions in which it is possible for the event to be designated a press conference. Eight appears on your measure to be too small. Are you comfortable with somewhere between eight and 38? Or do you want to — is there a more specific number that you want to –

Les Kinsolving:   I understand that 90 — that 90 reporters usually come to those –

MR. GIBBS: So we got a 90. That’s — apparently 55 seems to be quite in the middle.

Q    And then there’s 60, the number we need to end this filibuster.

Les Kinsolving:   If he could give shorter answers and only recognize them for two –

Q    Let’s move on. Let’s move on.

Les Kinsolving:   – he’d get through a lot. But I want to ask my second question, if I may.

MR. GIBBS: Okay, will the transcript please — just you can just put this in parentheses –

Q – more questions –

MR. GIBBS: Hold on, hold on, hold on, Goyal. I’m — this is my press conference.

Can you just put in parentheses that it appeared as Lester didn’t answer my second question, but we had like 90, 55, 38 and eight to the — now, I will — just for a point of personal privilege, it’s unclear as if Lester’s definition of the President ever having participated in a White House news conference would have been the case because I don’t believe that — I don’t believe the President has ever taken 38 questions at one event.

I’m sorry, Lester. Your second?

Les Kinsolving:   It’s the last one. What is the President’s reaction to how Mexico treats illegal aliens from Central America as detailed by syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin?

MR. GIBBS: I’m not aware that the President –

Les Kinsolving:   I mean they’re very tough in enforcing that border.

MR. GIBBS: I will take a look at that.

les kinsolving, Nuclear Summit, Robert Gibbs, Tommy Christopher, World Net Daily, WorldNetDaily

roxsteady

Lester and World Nut Daily are one of many reasons why the President hasn’t given a press conference and do you hear any complaints from the public at large? Michelle Malkin? Really? The Anchor Baby?
atreyue

Has there ever been a worse press secretary than Robert Gibbs?
ImNotBlue

roxsteady says:
May 4, 2010 at 12:38 pm

You think he’s scared of people who disagree with him? Or is it that he has complete and utter contempt for them?

Either way, you might be right. Although, I’m not sure that’s something to be proud of.
writer

Just stop having any press conferences. That’ll show ‘em.
http://politicsofdestruction.com/ Bobomatic

Gibbs is the most smarmy, arrogant, condescending press secretary EVER…. I really despise the way this man dances around questions and as equally disappointed in the lack of outrage from Lester’s colleagues.
timzank

rox-not-steady…but if Helen Thomas had asked the same question you’d be fine with it.
Rogue-Comic

Gibbs does more to hurt Obama’s relationship with the press than he does to help it. Perhaps he could serve better coordinating 2010 campaigns . . .
HanzoSword

Gibbs does a great job dealing with the wingnuts. Why would Obama need to hold a press conference and waste his time with the whiny press corps?
silkworm

Gibbs: arrogant, sarcastic, painfully trying to cover for the Prez.
Rogue-Comic

HanzoSword says:
May 4, 2010 at 3:29 pm
Gibbs does a great job dealing with the wingnuts. Why would Obama need to hold a press conference and waste his time with the whiny press corps?

Do you know what the 4th estate is?
Bias-Media

What Gibbs is doing is the classic “stomp the stomper” tactic; notice how after all is said and done, Les’ original question was never answered (why hasn’t the President called a Press Conference); but Gibbs managed to take the focus off of that question, and in the end, ridicule Les in the process.

pathetic…and I, for one, don’t understand why the Press puts up with this…if they were as aggressive towards Gibbs right now as they were towards Clinton during the Lewinsky scandal…maybe we’d get some answers
craigdc

Gibbs is stupid and dull. He should retire and teach school.
http://none pyrope

At once I feel both sorry for and admire Gibbs; he does a yeomans work of trying to cover for a less than stellar occupant of the White House.
StewartIII

Michelle Malkin| Lester Kinsolving: White House press corps pit bull
http://michellemalkin.com/2010/05/05/lester-kinsolving-white-house-press-corps-pit-bull/
ex political-media hack

8 questions?

that seems to be Obamas limit on a free press. (and the number where they cant yet find out the truth)

from chi sun times -

Sorry, Sen. Obama, eight isn’t enough :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES … – Mar 4, 2008

‘Guys, I mean come on. I just answered like eight questions.” With those few words, Barack Obama ended a Texas news conference where Obama walked out of press conference when asked about Tony Rezko…
ex political-media hack

and from reading this transcript – one would come away thinking that Gibbs really is a lying weasel…

and from having known him for a long time from Dem politics (pre obama) I already knew this to be true.
ex political-media hack

here we go -

http://www.suntimes.com/news/huntley/830209,CST-EDT-hunt07.article

Sorry, Sen. Obama, eight isn’t enough
Comments
March 7, 2008
STEVE HUNTLEY shuntley.cst@gmail.com
‘Guys, I mean come on. I just answered like eight questions.”

With those few words, Barack Obama ended a Texas news conference where he had come under tough questioning about influence peddler Tony Rezko from Sun-Times columnists Carol Marin and Lynn Sweet and CBS2 reporter Mike Flannery. In fact, Obama dodged the questions.

Try to imagine President Bush, fleeing questions coming at him fast and furious over a controversy, closing a news conference by saying, “Come on, I just answered like eight questions.” Democrats in Congress and liberal interest groups would be shouting coverup. The editorial pages of the national newspapers would be thundering outrage. The late night comedians and left-wing blogs would be heaping ridicule on him.

Or contrast Obama’s avoidance strategy to John McCain’s response to what was universally considered a shoddy New York Times story. It alleged two disillusioned McCain aides eight years ago thought he might have had a romantic relationship with a lobbyist. McCain met with reporters and took every question they had about the article.

Obama is lucky the Rezko affair is a Chicago issue with which national reporters are unfamiliar. And, given what’s known today, it’s hard to see how the Rezko case could wound Obama’s political ambitions. But for that reason, it’s hard to understand his reluctance to answer questions from the Chicago investigative reporters who know the Rezko issues best.
Latin2

Why isn’t the President speaking to media?

Oh right, he is too busy GOLFING.
chxbch22

Gibbs is the most condescending person I have ever seen. The Obama Administration is the only one that would employ this guy. If he worked for a private company, he would have been fired by now…..

Can 2012 get here any faster?
http://www.facebook.com/people/Chris-Van-Veen/617590041 Chris Van Veen

Bobbie Gibbs will be a high-school administrator in some two-bit town before this year is over. He’s grown utterly tiresome to the people in that room and to everyone else. His is a very tired refrain.
noah_fing-whey

Gibbs is demonstrating, like an arrogant little school-girl, a Saul Alinsky tactic. Ridicule, re-frame, refuse to speak to the question. And then all the other members of the press corp, hoping to one day get a job in the Obama Circus, snicker along with the joke. At times they start to react in favor of the point LK is trying to make but they catch themselves just in the nick of time. Always the members of the White House staff mirror the attitude of the president and that explains the arrogance and condescension that oozes through the streets of Washington these days.
Liberty – Not Redistribution

It’s very simple. President Obama can’t answer off the cuff questions. If he doesn’t have a teleprompter he spews drivel like the previous clown.
Sue

What press conferences? Obama hasn’t had one in almost a year. Oh, yeah, he walks up like he’s doing right now to the lectern, but answer questions? And, if someone is lucky enough to be able to ask a question about anything, the rambling, long winded no answer polemic bores us to death. I wonder, does he believe that we don’t know what his game is? I know that his pal, the rich gal from Chicago, thinks we’re stupid but that is to be expected from someone who has never had to earn a living.
eingriff

Mr. Obama can not have a presidential press conference. By definition, only a President can have a presidential press conference. Not an illegal alien pretending to be eligible to the Office of President.
Guitarzan

@HanzoSword: “Gibbs does a great job dealing with the wingnuts. Why would Obama need to hold a press conference and waste his time with the whiny press corps?”

Because 1) that was what he promised while running for the office, and 2) that is part of the responsibility of the President, to give the public a chance (through reporters) to ask him what he’s up to.

If he receives a “wingnut” type question from a zealot on either extreme, that is his chance to show he’s a man, and handle the question respectfully, but plausibly.

He’s not our king, after all…
Guitarzan

LK’s question was about taking questions at large, rather than taking selected questions. Gibbs asserted that the President took eight questions. That almost certainly was a set up. Gibbs introduced the quantity issue. LK objected that those eight were from a select few reporters (one presumes a pre-selected few).

Having introduced that eight questions were allowed, he then doggedly focuses on the quantity of questions, ignoring the actual question which was about the quality of the questioning, not the quantity of questions.

This is how politicians dodge questions they don’t want to answer. So, clearly, Gibbs is not willing to answer the actual question. Apparently he realizes it is a serious failure that the President had not held more press conferences.