Obama Gets New Two-Way Teleprompter

Update: Video of Major Garret asking Obama "what took him so long"? How utterly flawed. When asked about the Fourth of July issue (babe alert), Obama said that he has said it's a choice the Iranians will have to make - to basically follow the path of Nations and not use violence against it's people blahblah blah. What exactly does he need to see to figure out they've already chosen? President dazed and confused, how utterly sad.

I have a feeling the media isn't going to like it very much that Obama obviously coordinated a question with the Huffington Post's Nico Pitney. That's supposed to be their job. Video below.

Seriously, though, the emerging details make it even more obvious and that much worse. This also won't be good for the media, as it will only lead to people questioning what they've been doing even more. ABC can't be happy right now, what with their Obama special coming up. Get the mittens on to pull Press Secretary, Robert Gibbs out of the toaster the next time he has to face the press. This is pitiful. Obama has a two-way teleprompter now, who knew? Michelle is blogging it as well.

Reporters typically don’t coordinate their questions for the president before press conferences, so it seemed odd that Obama might have an idea what the question would be. Also, it was a departure from White House protocol by calling on The Huffington Post second, in between the AP and Reuters.

CBS Radio's Mark Knoller, a veteran White House correspondent, said over Twitter it was "very unusual that Obama called on Huffington Post second, appearing to know the issue the reporter would ask about."

According to POLITICO's Carol Lee, The Huffington Post reporter was brought out of lower press by deputy press secretary Josh Earnest and placed just inside the barricade for reporters a few minutes before the start of the press conference.

Comments

[mark l.]

won't bother looking down the memeory hole for liberal tales of jeff gannon/guckert.

I would point out that his sins were giving long, leading, questions, which put bush in a favorable light, and NOT coordinating the question.

I have already seen the libs invoking guckert, but in doing so, they are just simply providing the argument that the messiah is just as bad as they percieved bush.

[mark l.]

in unrelated(?) news, the wh will push for the abolition of the position of pitcher on baseball teams...

henceforth, all batter's boxes will provide tees.
further, the statistics produced by the change shall be included in all records, without any asterisks, or manner of distinguishing it from previous 'results'.

[mark l.]

I guess I should be careful- for the record:

I have nothing against breastfeeding in public.

breastfeeding a 46 year old, though...

[SacTownMan]

The media crafted Xerxes shows his hand yet again!

We the "sheeple" are simply pawns in the grand scheme of "the One"

The state run "Pravda" media continues to keep the message on track!

If they start to get off message there is the White House to get them back.

If the press can't do their job they should just eliminate the sham "press conferences" that the current POTUS uses to simply rehash his talking points.

I can not stand to watch this asshat speak. He is a total idiot that has no moral compass! There is no THERE there! He simply continues to show no soul until he his challenged then he snaps like a little mad dog at the questioner!

How dare WE mere humans question his greatness!

This bastard child of a failed socialist father and a moonbat mother is quite possibly the most retarded body to ever fill the seat of POTUS!

I never thought that I would see another Jimmy Carter in my lifetime! He makes Jimmy look presidential!

Talk about Change and Hope taking a crap in your face!

[templar knight]

Your favorite president, eh, STM? I feel exactly the same way you do about this clown. Welcome to the No. American rendition of the Banana Republic! All courtesy of the Hope and Change Thingy and stupid white people who should have known better.

[SacTownMan]

Yea Brother Knight we are seriously up shit creek without a paddle in this country right now with the lunatics in charge of the asylum!!

Frank, Dodd, Pelosi, Reed, Xerxes, Biden, Soros!!!

WTF!!!! Over!!!!

[Philip McDaniel]

"Nico, I know you bla bla bla...across the Internet...bla bla bla of Iran...I know there may actually be bla bla bla ... people in Iran..." Uh --"Do you have a question..." (that I previously gave you and is indeed here on my teleprompter?)

I need a barf bag.

[syn]

He looks like he'd rather be skateboarding around the White House with that 40 year old famous skateboarder dude.

[seekeronos]

And maybe doing bong hits and pizza pockets in the oval office after totally shredding some tricks in the Rose Garden...

And dang, if I am out of "Hopium" and lacking any spare "Change" in my pocket, because the economy is down the tubes.

[Joseph Brown]

Aaaand, uh, uh, uh, doooon't forget, uh, uh his Cairo speech was what gave the Iranians the'nads to buck up to that fugly guy with the bedpan for a hat.
If heee uh, uh, hadn't given that uh, uh speech those people wouldn't have the incentive to do what they're doing.

[bear1909]

Wait til the food shortages begin in the fall, People. The streets of the USA will make the streets of Tehran look like a day at the beach.

This administration is on a course to bring the private individual to its knees. "Health Dare" is just the beginning. Your financial system is already been shipped wholesale to the Geithner cronies in Indonesia (sharia finance anyone?!?!??!). And the industrial base has been gutted by the beheading of GM and Chrysler...and the rights of private investors sodomized by Soetoro's bankruptcy law end run.

Food and energy are all that is left. And they are going to be scarce.

Plan well, American Patriots. Plan well and godspeed.

Bear1909 out.

[Rob Crawford]

"Wait til the food shortages begin in the fall, People."

That's some industrial-grade crazy, people.

[Ad rem]

Mark.....I do believe that to be that final objective....to have us all feeding at the "government" teat.

[a giant slor]

Nico Pitney has been the best source of Iran news since the election, he's been immersed in it full time, so it's not surprising Obama would call on him, nor is it surprising he'd know what topic Pitney would ask about.

[mark l.]

ad-
he sees fox news as the hairy nipple of a chain smokin mamma.

[nina]

This man is disgraceful . Inviting terrorists to a 4th of July party which represents our Country 's fight for freedom and liberty from oppression. All while letting people dying for the same reasons without any support. He is a disgrace and I hope the USA wakes up.

[mark l.]

slor-
pitney's skill and knowledge base is irrelevant to the fact that the question was scripted.
I imagine if I knew nothing about relativity, but coordinated a q and a with albert einstein, I'd look rather smart.

[Tex]

"There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again."

George W Bush

[Nishner]

Obama didn't know what the question was. They simply contacted the reporter because he was in touch with Iranians that Obama might ask him a question. Considering the importance of and interest in Iran this week, coupled with the reporters contacts, seems pretty reasonable.

[mark l.]

"Obama didn't know what the question was."

that is funny. save that one for defending his abc townhall event.

obama:

"there may actually be questions from people inside iran..."

nico:

"...I wanted to use this opportunity to aks you a question directly from an iranian..."

what a coincidence. maybe it was just the messiah's mind melding with the audience.

[mark l.]

I've even read the nico response:
http://www.politico.com/blogs/michaelcalderone/0609/Pitney_says_WH_reached_out_didnt_guarantee_question.html?showall

the words that would have cleared obama-

"obama did not know the specifc question in advance" were never uttered.

if anything, nico tried to offer an explanation for how obama would know it in advance, without him specifically giving the question to him.

obama's staff saw nico's website,
" I received a call from White House staff saying they had seen what I'd written and thought the President might be interested in receiving a question directly from an Iranian."

he then goes on to say...

"The White House didn't guarantee that I would be able to ask a question."
this is completely irrelevant to the very larger story of whether the exchange was preplanned.

"I was able to post a message in Farsi on Twitter and have my request for questions posted late last night on Balatarin. I ended up choosing the question I did because it was one of the consensus questions that many people had suggested."

this is the "out" he is providing obama. the questions were posted, and he picked a popular one, without adding that obama could very well have looked to the list. If nico didn't preplan, he would have pounced on it as an out for the messiah.

[Nishner]

You're a tool. You managed to miss the most relevant info:

"they (the White House) were up front about not being able to assure that a question would be asked, they never asked what the question would be"

[mark l.]

you act as if no one saw the reporting on the townhall events in the democratic primary...

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/03/27/obama_town_hall_questioners_we.html

"But while the online question portion of the White House town hall was open to any member of the public with an Internet connection, the five fully identified questioners called on randomly by the president in the East Room were anything but a diverse lot. They included: a member of the pro-Obama Service Employees International Union, a member of the Democratic National Committee who campaigned for Obama among Hispanics during the primary; a former Democratic candidate for Virginia state delegate who endorsed Obama last fall in an op-ed in the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star; and a Virginia businessman who was a donor to Obama's campaign in 2008."

the messiah has a lengthy record of planted questioners.

I'll repeat: nico never stated the president did not know the question in advance. It is the strongest answer to give, and the huffer doesn't say it.

[mark l.]

"they never asked what the question would be"

that doesn't answer the question of whether they knew.

[Nishner]

Congratulations. That's even dumber than your usual posts.

[Tim]

I'd have an inkling of hope for Obama if I thought his anger was aimed at Iran's regime and not at the questioner. I'm sure it felt good to be "King for 8 years" back on coronation day, back before he found out being a United States President is more akin to one hand on a bull rope, a wild ride, and inwardly cussing while wondering what is keeping the 8-second horn from sounding.

[mark l.]

ring..ring...

nico this is the wh. after observing your conxn with the iranians, we would like you to ask a question.

Nico: "would it be ok if I asked about the conditions that you would accept..."

voila. the statement that the wh never asked is true. it does not provide that he didn't clear his question prior. face it-obama is a great speech reader, but no better than average at extemperaneous speeches. axelrod doesn't send his boy out there without as much prep work as possible.

[Nishner]

That's moronic.

[mark l.]

as moronic as say...

dana milbank confirming that it was a planted question?

dan has a link above. as soon as you are done with your letters to the wapo editors and milbank, I'll see you there.

[Nishner]

Pretty close. Poor Washington insiders. got their feelings hurt 'cause Obama didn't call on them.

A planted question is when you tell someone what to ask. Presidential press converences always call on certain major new organizations - NY Times, CBS, etc. By your definition, since those people know they're going to get to ask a question, anything they ask is a "planted question".

Again -- OBAMA DID NOT KNOW WHAT THE QUESTION WAS GOING TO BE. SO IT's NOT A PLANTED QUESTION.

And yes, your point is moronic.

[Micha Elyi]

I remember how huffy the Establishment Media clique became when one time a reporter outside the clique asked a softball question during the Bush years.

All that howling about Fox News being unfair and unbalanced from the bash-America-first and crowd turns out to be nothing but projection on their part.

[Nishner]

The question he took is below. Please explain how it is a softball question.

"Under which conditions would you accept the election of Ahmadinejad? And if you do accept it without any significant changes in the conditions there, isn't that a betrayal of what the demonstrators there are working towards?"

[Rob Crawford]

"That's moronic. "

That's Obama!

"Please explain how it is a softball question."

Obama knew it was going to be asked ahead of time. That doesn't require the White House to have requested it, just that they were given a heads-up that it was going to be asked.

"A planted question is when you tell someone what to ask."

So... if the 'journalists' were to fax the White House the questions they intended to ask the day before a press event, not only would those NOT be planted questions, it would all be perfectly acceptable and fine examples of journalism? A real 'truth to power' moment?

Methinks you're playing with the No True Scotsman fallacy.

[Nishner]

Nicco Pitney, the guy that asked the question says the White House DID NOT KNOW WHAT HE WAS GOING TO ASK. So the continued attempt to say that Obama knew what was going to be asked is BS.

From Pitney:

"Thanks also to the White House staff. They were up front about not being able to assure that a question would be asked, they never asked what the question would be,"

Again - Obama didn't know what the question would be. Understand?

And yeah the MSM - the guys you're defending - are unhappy. They don't like their little club broken into by web reporters or questions from actual people involved in the events - the question originated from an Iranian.

And the question was probably the toughest he took at the news conference.

I understand why

[seekeronos]

'--- "Wait til the food shortages begin in the fall, People."

That's some industrial-grade crazy, people. ---'

I won't be too quick to write off Bear1909 as part of the lunatic fringe, Rob.

I'm afraid that this government is more likely to be taking notes on how (and how not) to handle massive civil discord WHEN it arises.

And given the way that Obama and his fellow socialists seem to dismantling private enterprise in this country... it would not at all surprise me to find that we will have food and fuel shortages come autumn or winter this year.