video The takeaway question from yesterday's contentious sit-down interview between Fox News' Bret Baier and President Obama: Was Baier guilty of unnecessarily interrupting the President, or was he simply keeping the President on track? We've already run down the mixed media reactions to the interview, and now Mediaite's own Tommy Christopher asked White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs for his thoughts on the interview. (more...)

Governor Paterson's favorite person in New York these days is probably Hiram Monserrate, the former New York State Senator whose political path has gone from switching parties to an assault conviction to expulsion from the Senate to campaigning for his old seat. Monserrate is a walking distraction, at least until Election Day tomorrow. (more...)

video Well this is an interesting soundbite. Appearing on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs made a rather bold claim. When asked if the president now believes if he has the votes to pass health care, Gibbs avowed, "Chris, we'll have the votes when the House votes within the next week." He further proclaimed that next week we will be talking about health care reform not as a proposal, but something that "will soon be the law of the land." (more...)

video After months of speculation (and even some criticism), President Obama has announced the names of organizations and amounts of money he is donating his Nobel Prize money to. True to form, the President made a diverse and balanced slate of organizations. For example, on education, he donated $125k each to the United Negro College Fund, the Hispanic College Fund, and the Appalachian Leadership and Education Foundation. There will surely be some who will criticize the President, perhaps feeling he should have given more to Haiti relief ($200k), but the list seems to reflect the values he has consistently portrayed. (more...)

video At today's briefing, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs fielded many questions about the President's checkup on Saturday, which revealed a slightly elevated LDL cholesterol level. Gibbs confessed that the President could use a little more "party of no" when it comes to the dessert tray, and got a big laugh when he invoked the politically inconvenient salad green arugula. Check out the clip, and find out who, shockingly, is eating arugula these days. (more...)

Last week's health care summit was largely the result of outrage over the lack of promised transparency in health care reform. While that criticism focused on conference negotiations over the health care bill, the true failure of transparency occurred in the spring and summer of 2009, as the White House met with leaders from the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries. I asked Robert Gibbs about it Friday. Listen carefully to what I asked, and to his response: (more...)

video On MSNBC's Morning Joe today, I heard one of the strangest critiques yet of President Obama. In discussing yesterday's healthcare summit, Meet the Press host David Gregory said that the President's ability to debate his opponents is both a strength and a weakness. Why is it a weakness? Because while Americans like their leaders to be fighters, they also want them to "stand back and achieve." What? (more...)

Can it be that the leader of the free world, who recently made a quick lunch out of a roomful of House Republicans, is afraid of getting nailed by Stephen Colbert? In an interview with Michael Scherer, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said that President Obama would love to appear on Jon Stewart's Daily Show, but gave Colbert the bump. (more...)

video Apparently, the surprise daytime visit President Obama paid to the White House briefing room last week was not nearly enough to quell complaints that by not giving a full presser to the White House press corps. Obama is trying to do an end run around the 4th Estate. (more...)

"President Obama wanted to change Washington. It changed ... for the worse. And it’s now holding his agenda hostage. The question is: How much is he willing to change himself in order to save it?"

At today's National Prayer Breakfast, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Obama spoke out against draconian anti-gay legislation being proposed in Uganda. The President's appearance at the National Prayer Breakfast has been the subject of controversy, given the ties between "The Family," the event's organizer, and the proponents of that Uganda law.

Although "The Family" in the US says it opposes the law and is working to defeat it, it was a "Family" member in Uganda who proposed the law. On Monday, Rachel Maddow spoke out against the President's appearance: (more...)

exclusive! What does History look like? In the weeks leading up to the historic 2008 election, filmmaker Jeff Deutchman wondered just that, and decided to capture it. Armed with his own cameras, he set out to chronicle that day as he experienced it — and sent out an open invitation for others from around the world to contribute their own images, footage and stories from the day Barack Obama was elected President of the United States — a.k.a., the day when the country voted for Hope. (more...)

It has been a little over a year since Barack Obama was elected President, which was popularly perceived at the time as a paradigmatic shift in history. A lot has happened since that exquisite moment - or, as some would put it, not enough has happened. Obama's presidency has been attacked from all sides as part of many different agendas, but the assault that interests me as a filmmaker and a progressive is the one leveled from the Left against Obama's failure to adequately move history forward. (more...)

Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman is having a real go at President Obama over remarks he made in a speech yesterday, saying he'll "give him the boot back to Washington and to visit his failures back there." The subject of Goodman's ire is that, for the second time, the President mentioned Las Vegas as a place not to blow your money if you can't afford it. The President has a seemingly unlikely defender in the person of Ed Morrissey, one of the most influential conservative bloggers in existence. Are the President's pleas for bipartisanship breaking through? (more...)

video Today was day two of Fox & Friends' investigation into what the hell our President is doing bowing to everybody, including the Mayor of Tampa, Florida recently. They had Mayor Pam Iorio on this morning, who didn't feel like playing along. (more...)

I may be paraphrasing a bit.

In an extended back-and-forth at today's White House briefing, ABC News' Jake Tapper and Press Secretary Robert Gibbs sparred over this question:

The President's executive order creating a bipartisan commission to look at debt reduction, why is it needed -- considering the fact that Democrats control the House, Senate, and the White House?

At today's briefing, conservative radio host and reporter Lester Kinsolving asked Press Secretary Robert Gibbs to respond to a pair of MSNBC quotes. First, a golden oldie from June, in which a Newsweek editor compares the President to God (it makes slightly more sense in context), and Chris Matthews' post-SOTU declaration that he had forgotten that Obama was black for an hour.

Lester, you may recall, got a really quick answer to a really long question awhile back. Gibbs was equally brief this time. (more...)

video The question of the day at President Obama's Tampa, Florida, Town Hall meeting has got to be this stumper from aspiring poet Rashonda Williams, an energetic charmer who got the President's attention by jumping up and down. She explained to the President that her brothers are "in and out of prison with the drugs," and went on to say that her 27 year-old brother has accumulated 33 drug felonies. She wanted to know if the President had any ideas to break that cycle of recidivism. The President paused awhile before answering. (more...)

video The echoes of President Obama's State of the Union speech had barely receded when MSNBC's Chris Matthews blurted out what will probably be the quote of the night. "I forgot he was black tonight for an hour...I said wait a minute, he's an African American guy in front of a bunch of other white people..." (more...)

video Isn't Countdown host Keith Olbermann supposed to be inside some kind of tank for President Obama? That's what I keep hearing, but you wouldn't know it to watch his segment on the POTUS' proposed SOTU spending freeze. It's one thing to say that the freeze is a gimmick and a bad idea, but quite another thing to not tell the whole story. For a guy who constantly mocks Fox News' "Fair and Balanced" slogan, Keith displayed a marked lack of both. About 2 minutes into this clip, Keith points out that it was Senator John McCain who proposed a spending freeze during the 2008 campaign, only to have the idea "heartily rebuffed" by Obama. Then, he plays the same clip everyone else is playing to illustrate how candidate Obama opposed a spending freeze, while President Obama proposes one: (more...)

Acknowledging the omen of last Tuesday's special election in Massachusetts, President Obama and his team are repositioning themselves publicly in order to showcase the president's "feisty side," White House senior adviser David Axelrod told Politico. He was quick to note, though, that there will be "no reinventing” despite Washington's desire for "a shakeup or human sacrifice.” Call it what you will, but isn't a new public strategy a form of reinvention? (more...)

President Obama used his weekly public address for January 23rd to sidestep the media and hit the Supreme Court directly, calling this week's 5-4 ruling on campaign finance reform "a victory" for lobbyists, opening "the floodgates for an unlimited amount of special interest money into our democracy." Citing his own "historic reforms" to limit the shady "power to tilt the tables," the President railed against the Court and spoke of repairing "the damage that has been done." (more...)

video ABC News Senior White House Correspondent Jake Tapper has already faced the Mediaite 5 Quick Questions juggernaut, but has bravely decided to occupy the hot-seat once again for this edition of Inside the White House Press Corps. Jake ends his first full year covering the Obama administration having earned a reputation as a tough questioner in White House briefings, often drawing criticism from partisans on either side of the spectrum. He's also on a short list (no longer including Ted Koppel) to succeed George Stephanopoulos as host of ABC's This Week program. Here, Tapper discusses what it takes to be a good White House reporter, his relationship with Robert Gibbs, the relative merits of the Wonder Pets and much more. (more...)

The subject of today's Inside the White House Press Corps is the New York Daily News' Ken Bazinet, proprietor of the Mouth of the Potomac blog. He's the guy in the briefing room who best fits the image of a hard-boiled reporter that we've all seen on TV and in the movies, the kind of guy who pulls a corned-beef sandwich out of his pocket rather than stop work on a story. If you're interested in politics, you should put Ken's blog on your daily reads, and follow him on Twitter. Here, he offers us his insights on covering the White House, and how Robert Gibbs is growing into the role of Press Secretary.

Today, we go Inside the White House Press Corps to speak with ABC News White House correspondent Yunji de Nies. Before joining ABC News, the UC Berkeley Journalism grad worked for 2 years at ABC's New Orleans affiliate, where she did extensive reporting on Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. Now, as part of ABC News' White House team, she's on the cutting edge of political reporting that combines the reach of a television network with the agility of new media. In our exclusive interview, Yunji talks about covering the President and Rush Limbaugh at the same time, taking cameras out of the briefing room, and makes a confession about her TV viewing habits. (more...)

Incessant hecklers forced President Barack Obama's speech to a halt in Massachusetts on Sunday, as he showed his support for Democratic Senate candidate Martha Coakley. It sounded more like today's NFL playoff game than a political rally. Check out the video below! In the run-up to Tuesday's highly contested special Senate election, Democrats have appeared not only unsure, but flat out nervous. The latest polls have Republican Scott Brown ahead in the polls, while precedence in Massachusetts may give Democrats a glimmer of hope. (more...)

Despite appearances to the contrary, "there are times when I am not so calm," President Barack Obama said this morning at an African American congregation in Northwest Washington where Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke on February 7, 1968. Today's largely personal speech during a session of Sunday worship, not coincidentally just before Martin Luther King Jr. Day, may signal a shift for Obama back to the impassioned and personal rhetoric we've come to expect from the president, as he admitted pain and impatience. (more...)

As reported yesterday, President Barack Obama wrote the latest Newsweek cover story entitled "Why Haiti Matters" at the request of editor-in-chief Jon Meacham. Obama appears to be using the piece, which is now online in full, both as a call to arms and as a message that he's moved swiftly and effectively in a time of emergency. (more...)

Much has been written on this site about the despicable comments of Pat Robertson (who said that the Haiti earthquake was the result of a pact with Satan) and Rush Limbaugh (who, among other things, urged his listeners not to donate to relief efforts), both of which came up at today's White House press briefing. Press Secretary Robert Gibbs' responses were properly calibrated to the importance of these men at a time such as this.

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video As the carnage in Haiti rightly dominates the news, the seeming cliche´ that this "puts it all in perspective" really can't be made enough. The horrified shame that Rachel Maddow displayed at the idea that the Haitian ambassador might think that Pat Robertson speaks for all Americans was remarkable. A smaller such moment, on last night's Countdown, spoke volumes about the triviality of the current political media. (more...)

When Rush Limbaugh was hospitalized with chest pains, his fate uncertain, Rachel Maddow, myself, and many others urged transcendence of partisan rancor as a naturally decent response. Now, barely 2 weeks later, Limbaugh is using the heartrending tragedy of the Haitian earthquake to score points against President Obama, and even urges people not to donate to the relief effort. This is shockingly low, even for Limbaugh.

Emblematic of this right vs. left insanity is the fact that the left chooses to focus on the sizzly "black people" quote at Media Matters, and completely misses the really disgusting parts: (more...)

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There was a funny bit of back-and-forth at yesterday's White House press briefing in which Press Secretary Robert Gibbs accused the press corps of having called the President "overexposed," resulting in some crossfire and several straw polls that indicated, among other things, that I'm one of only 3  White House reporters who want to win the lottery. Beneath the jocularity, however, lies a legitimate media criticism.

Even though the release of Game Change has made it seem like a relic, it was only Friday when former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani stated that there had been "no domestic attacks under Bush."

Robert Gibbs responded with a dose of reality, but he hadn't had a chance to react to Rudy's later clarification (through a spokesman). I asked Gibbs about it yesterday, and he just seemed glad that Giuliani had cleared up the most glaring omission.

At today's White House briefing, Huffington Post's Sam Stein asked Robert Gibbs about Rudy Giuliani's remarks on ABC's Good Morning America. Gibbs succeeded where George Stephanopoulos failed, calling Rudy out for his inconsistent statements on civilian justice for terrorists, and observing that much of what Hizzoner said didn't "quite gibe with reality." You might say he took Giuliani to Schooliani.

Update: Stephanopoulos and Giuliani respond. (more...)

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Rudy Giuliani, who once threw a fundraiser where he asked for donations of $9.11, has suddenly forgotten all about the worst terrorist attack on American soil in history. He told GMA host George Stephanopoulos that there were no domestic attacks under George W. Bush, while there has been one under President Obama.

Perhaps worse than that, Stephanopoulos seems to have forgotten about 9/11, the anthrax attacks, and the "Shoe bomber," too.

Update: Giuliani and Stephanopoulos respond here.

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The sparks kicked up by C-Span's request to televise healthcare negotiations have erupted into a firestorm, as White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was grilled about the President's campaign promise of complete transparency, and responded testily. CNN's Jack Cafferty delivered a stinging j'accuse to President Obama, calling the pledge a "lie just to get elected."

At today's White House briefing, Robert Gibbs answered another raft of questions about President Obama's campaign promise to show all healthcare negotiations on C-Cpan. He was testy from the start, referring Chip Reid "to yesterday's transcript."

When pressed, Gibbs reiterated his answers from yesterday, asking if the media had lacked information about the healthcare reform process in producing stories. Finally, Fox News' Major Garrett asked Gibbs if the President kept his promise. The answer he gave was surprising.

"Yes." That's not what I got from his answers yesterday. It sounded more like "We did pretty well with that," a debatable position, but there's no way to square this with the President's promise to air everything.

On the other end of the scale sits Jack Cafferty, whose apoplectic comments during the 2008 campaign made him an unlikely darling of liberals. He came out firing at Gibbs and the President, saying the transparency promise was a lie.

While Gibbs is clearly wrong, Cafferty well overstates his case here, saying that President Obama "hasn't even made a token effort to keep his campaign promises of more openness and transparency." To be sure, the failures at transparency are big ones, but this administration still has a record of openness that is unprecedented.

The decision to skip formal conference committee negotiations, and not to televise them, is going to continue to cost the administration politically. The calculation here, I believe, is that entrusting the healthcare reform bill to a full conference of a Congress that can't get out of its own way is a recipe for disaster. If skipping conference saves the bill, it may well be worth all the bad press.

video Although most news operations seem more concerned with transparency as it relates to our clothing at airport scanners these days, the White House is taking fire anew over the President's campaign pledge to strip-search healthcare negotiations in full view of the public. There may be good, reasonable answers to these questions, but what the White House gave us yesterday isn't it.

Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was pressed on the issue of Health Care transparency yesterday, spurred by a letter from C-SPAN which requested access to the upcoming process of reconciling the House and Senate bills. Here's some of what Gibbs had to say:

Transcript:

Q Okay, just lastly, why can't you answer the C-SPAN question --

MR. GIBBS: I did.

Q Well, you didn't, because you said --

MR. GIBBS: I said I hadn't seen the letter, which I haven't --

Q Why do you need to see a letter? I mean, this is something the President said during the campaign and he talked about he wants everything open on C-SPAN --

MR. GIBBS: Dan asked me about the letter and I haven't read the letter.

Q Well, I'll just ask you about having it on C-SPAN --

MR. GIBBS: I answered Dan's question and I answered this before we left for the break, Keith. The President's number-one priority is getting the differences worked out, getting a bill to the House and the Senate. We've filled your newspaper and many others with the back-and-forth and the details of what's in these bills. I don't want to keep that from continuing to happen. I don't think there's anybody that would say that we haven't had a thorough, robust, now spanning two calendar years' debate on health care.

Q There are a lot of reasons not to do it on C-SPAN -- people could showboat. Does he regret making that statement during the campaign?

MR. GIBBS: No.

This isn't the first time this has come up, and Gibbs' responses are pretty consistent. This White House, as even consummate skeptic Jake Tapper points out, has an excellent record of transparency relative to past administrations. This has been the White House's drumbeat, that the Obama administration has been more transparent than any in our history. The release of the White House visitor logs and the almost real-time reporting of Recovery Act data are good examples of this, as well as some of the problems that can accompany this kind of openness.

Even on Health Care, the promise of openness has been partially fulfilled. Gibbs is quite correct that there has been an unprecedented level of public involvement in the debate. An extensive healthcare summit at the beginning of this process was a model of what the President had promised, engaging a wide variety of stakeholders in full view of C-Span's cameras. Along the way, there has been copious coverage of various debates and votes in Congress.

But Gibbs' responses yesterday failed to address the most important part of that pledge, the one that has gone unfulfilled. Secret negotiations like the one between the pharmaceutical lobby, the White House, and the Senate Finance Committee are the Obama pledge's raison d'etre. Hours of debate and information are nice, but the real value of transparency is in keeping everyone honest. By meeting with insurance and pharmaceutical industry leaders in private, the administration has shielded the parties most in need of being kept honest, the ones most likely to poison the process.

In fact, the President even referenced the pharmaceutical lobby specifically when explaining the benefits of an open process:

If there had been television cameras at those negotiations with PhRMA, would that deal have ever been struck? Probably not, and that might be the tough answer that's being left unsaid. If the administration felt that removing the pharmaceutical lobby as an obstacle was crucial to getting reform done, so much so that it outweighed their pledge for transparency, that would be an ugly truth, but a truth nonetheless.

We were promised transparency filet mignon to replace the bread and water of  previous administrations, and we've ended up with Domino's Pizza. Granted, it's the new and improved Domino's, but still. The White House owes the American people a better explanation of the menu change.

I started out this year wondering if the white-hot intensity of the 2008 campaign could be even partially sustained, a daunting question for a $10-a-post blogger trying to hustle his way into a career in journalism. I'm ending it as a White House reporter and political correspondent for two national online publications, well on my way to going from Pinocchio to real boy. Along the way, I learned some lessons and saw some things that I'd like to share with you. This isn't a roundup of the (Best/Worst/Most) of 2009, but rather a peek behind the curtain.

My story starts in the middle of the year. It was mid-June, and I had just gone through a well-publicized breakup with Politics Daily. I was sitting in the front row of the White House press briefing room, tapping away on my laptop before the briefing, when Lynn Sweet approached me.

Lynn had been my stablemate at Politics Daily, and we had only met for the first time a few weeks earlier. During that initial meeting, she talked to me for almost an hour, dispensing frequent "razz the new guy" barbs and journalistic lessons learned. I considered it a profound honor to have my chops busted by a legend like Lynn Sweet, whose work I had enjoyed so much during the campaign. If someone has to tell you "Go cover City Hall, kid," you could do a lot worse.

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If you thought 2010 was the future, think again. A phony new email chain letter -- one of the antiquated viral sort leftover from the AOL era -- is claiming that the case against President Barack Obama's citizenship has reached the Supreme Court, based on a forged and typo-riddled Associated Press "report." (more...)

Last night CBS broadcast this year's Kennedy Center Honors, held earlier this month, and it was a pretty lovely affair as Mel Brooks, Robert DeNiro, Bruce Springsteen, Dave Brubeck and Grace Bumbry were honored for their incredible contributions to arts and culture. It was an exceptionally star-studded affair, too — not only on stage but in the audience, where President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama sat with the honorees. Meryl Streep and Marty Scorsese honored De Niro (great story by Scorsese too, about how De Niro got to the essential truth of a character); Carl Reiner honored Brooks, along with Gary Beach and Matthew Broderick from The Producers ("Springtime For Hitler" was especially hilarious considering the locale, and the audience), plus Jack Black in tights; Herbie Hancock honored jazz great Dave Brubeck (on his birthday!), along with an ensemble performance by none other than his sons; and Aretha Franklin (sans hat) honored Bumbry. There were others — Martin Short, Frank Langella, Ben Stiller, Sharon Stone (looking jarringly young), Ed Norton — and then there was the finale: Bruce. (more...)