First Days For A New White House

a White House press corps that seemed determined to shake the lap dog reputation reporters covering Obama during the campaign had acquired
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You and Joe obviously both travel in strikingly different circles than your readership. The only people I know who think the press are Obama lapdogs are drooling idiots. Most people are aware of the difference between ginning up a war under false pretenses and noticing that someone is using the wrong pen.

And then Biden took his ill-timed swipe at Chief Justice Roberts. That Obama arm grab is priceless video…

http://www.political-buzz.com/

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Not a bad piece at all. But you have the “lap dog” thing all wrong. It’s that you reporters were/are *Bush* lap dogs.
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Poor Scott Stanzel. This piece has to be rather embarrassing to him. He was the Bush press techie geek. Twitter / Scott Stanzel: @Stepto it isn’t as if we were unaware of twitter, IM and FB. The issue is constraining Presidential Records Act requirements..

“a White House press corps that seemed determined to shake the lap dog reputation reporters covering Obama during the campaign had acquired”
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Not being snarky but reputation among who? I know that’s sort of a republican and Howie Kurtz (redundant) talking point but is there something more that makes you write that?

OK, Michael, I’ve been dying to ask: are those smeary-type fountain or roller-ball pens? With so many left-handed Presidents, it would seem to be a problem. (Yeah, I know, it’s a trivial question! But it’s been bugging me every time I’ve seen any of the last few POTUSes signing things.)
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OT, I am also finding it VERY funny that the press is making such a huge deal about having finally grown a pair. Major Garrett of Fox explained yesterday that it was because this administration had made such a big point of transparency. So the media sat on their hands for eight years because it was obvious they would be ignored and lied to? Fascinating. Gives whole new meaning to the idea of “Don’t ask, don’t tell”.

Chaff. D+.
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Do you plan to include, say, issues in your White House coverage, or should we expect an endless stream of meta-news reporting how the reporters are reporting on the administration?

joyomama, i will look closer next time i sit in on a signing.

Mike, do you detect at least a small sense of embarrassment among your peers over the fact that they were so – how do I put it? – asleep at the wheel during the Bush years? Maybe “non-existent” would be more appropriate? “Complicit” seems a little harsh, but there’s always the question of whether it’s apropos.
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Anyway, however you look at it, the Press didn’t do their job, and, like I asked, do you get a general feeling that the Press is beating themselves up over it? Rending of garments, anything like that?

FlownOver,

I actually find reports on reporting interesting, an issue in itself. Can’t please everyone!
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Michael, many thanks. Obama has a peculiarly awkward version of the left-handed curl.

Talkingpointsmemo:

Time headlines with “The Obama Team’s Debut: Not Quite Ready on Day One.”

Evidence in support of this claim includes: staffers lacking login access to their computers, misspelled names on signs identifying staff desks, and “Obama struggled with the practice of using a different pen for every document he signed.”

If Obama’s staff had been studying signing-pen-choreography and name-plate-correctness during the transition period, personally, I would have been worried. But that’s just me. But it’s nice that America has a point-and-laugh piece from Time magazine to let the public know that the priorities should be pens and name plates. But I think the actual, real problems of America are a priority, which makes me liberal elitist scum anyway, so it doesn’t matter.

Reporters have been curled up asleep in Bush’s lap for 8 years. And now the trivia obsessed media is patting itself on the back for asking the hard questions to the Obama administration.

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The thing is, that the Obama team is trying to *govern* and the press thinks the first priority is to assuage/entertain the press. But the Obamas MUST entertain/assuage the press, lest they viciously turn on him like they did Clinton in the early days.
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Some feel that the Obamas should be following the Bush model, which is entertain/assuage the press at all times, forget the governance.
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How can we resolve this to both sides’ satisfaction?
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Michael, you are a twit. Is any of this stuff important? ZOMG!!! he’s not used to signing each document with a different pen!! The horror!!
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I’m with JJ, there are more important things to worry about than this nonsense.

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He DOES have a very remarkable left-hand pen-signing hook.
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James, how about the press get a clue? That would resolve it to MY satisfaction. But that’s just me.
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As for the technological problems – nice of the Bushies to leave the place mired in circa 2000 tech. I fully expect the Obama team will fix that as well.

joyomama,
I like Oreos, but not as a steady diet. When a reporter spends significant time on navel-gazing (whether his or his colleagues’) there’s less time & energy left to to cover real issues beyond a “he said/they said” level. We had our fill of lazy, “empty calories” coverage of the McCain campaign; I’d urge a more responsible and informative approach to stories from the White House.
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Or, what JJ said.

Joyomama, as a left handed person (I was going to say lefty) you can either tilt the paper or curl you hand. I tilt the paper. Leftys have advantages at white boards and flip charts. You can see what they write immediately as their body is positioned to the far right of what they’re writing.

Given that these journos have a natural sense of ego and self-importance, and that power corrupts, maybe we should have term limits on journos, too, to keep the corruption that results, naturally, from working in such a heady, yet toxic, environment from harming the country as a result of their, the journos, failure to carry out their duties faithfully.
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Just a suggestion. I’m thinking for the common good, here.

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The press are in competition with each other to get a story that will sell eyeballs. They aren’t there to help BO govern. Consequently they tend to throw tantrums when they don’t get the kinds of stories that will give them a leg up on the competition. And then some of them are filled with self-important buffoonery about how important they are, but that’s a personality defect.
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So, even terming out the press corpse isn’t going to help that situation. The Obama team just needs to learn how to deal with it. It wasn’t for nothing that the press corpse was in the tank for Bush. That’s what they did best: manage the press. The ONLY thing they did well.
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That’s just reality, folks.
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Flownover,
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I’d like more of this particular bag of Oreos, and sooner rather than later. It would not be a bad thing if Michael did some serious self-reflection, and having some of it happen here would be interesting to me. White House press coverage is fascinating theater, and I’d like to hear more inside analysis.
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The pen thing is just my inner geekiness about everyday life details. My lefty son (in every sense of the word) doesn’t contort his arm as much as my lefty husband, who learned cursive in the days of fountain pens. I started wondering about pens and such, and whether Obama had to use flowing ink pens when he learned to write. Sorry for the detour into Jo’s Trivialand.

Wait, there’s more…
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…White House file cabinets still have “1234″ combinations…
…take out menus to “China Garden” are out of date…
…Cheney’s secret bunker still not found…
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Oh, the horrors!
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(barf)

Micheal, David Kurtz has a word for you.

joyomama – Scherer’s been doing self-reflection pieces since he showed up on Swampland. He hopped on to the McCain beat and immediately did a piece on how McCain is awesome because he lies to the press and he knows he’s lying to the press (and the press knows it too).
This was followed by a piece on how McCain made him feel about being a reporter.
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OT – I like that the High Sheriffs took our complaints about the new comment system and translated it into “let’s get rid of the comment numbers!”

Matt @ 9:19, thanks for the link to the press room visit. Were I one of the reporters there, I would be embarassed. What an obnoxious mob scene. Lap dogs? More like a pack of jackals.
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I think the physical space transition is interesting. During the press room mob scene Obama asks if he can go a certain way and is assured he can. It’s all his house after all, but he does have some courtesey and class unlike the reporters. I can imagine his looking around for a restroom and being directed to a special one just for the President.
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Anyway, MS, tell your friends down there that they are unlikely to receive any more informal visits from the man after that display. Were you there? I thought I saw somebody that looked like KT.

Incorrigible Moron,
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The press’ wholly earned reputation as lap dogs couldn’t have been earned in 9 or 10 months..maybe it was the last 8? It’s telling that the only attempt Scherer makes to defend this piece of sh!t in the comments is the stuff about the pen w/ joyomama. Are you mad at Obama for not asking you to play DJ Jazzy Incorrigible Moron to his Fresh Prince? It’s only been a couple days dude.
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You nailed him though Scherer…the pen, who picks up documents….really stunning stuff. I think we might have to give the Bush administration a lot more credit for being able sneak past the American public a fake war, torture as policy, widespread wiretapping, including the wiretapping of journalists, widespread fraud, falsifying of documents, politically motivated prosecutions, rigged elections, rampant fraud at Treasury, so much I can’t even remember it all…all while you and your intrepid colleagues were furiously digging for dirt.
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I mean if Obama can’t even get away w/ his pen flubs, how was Bush able to get away w/ so much? Either he was some kind of genius, a Machiavellian Michael Jordan or our press really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really sucks.

“I mean if Obama can’t even get away w/ his pen flubs, how was Bush able to get away w/ so much?”
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Great penmanship? OK, I’m going with “B”.

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When you think about the fact that Obama and members of Congress were elected to actually *govern,* the press is actually a very powerful interest group whose interests and demands must be addressed, lest they impede the actual job of governing. To do that, the Obamas have to play to the egos, satisfy the demands, just like any other powerful interest group. The press and their demands are, in short, a distraction from their real job of governing.
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It isn’t like the kind of stuff that Michael writes up, or even Karen writes up, or that Time Mag publishes, or TV news broadcasts, has any actual value, although we *wish* it did. It’s just there to fill up magazine space, for the magazines which must be sold. That they have a more self-important concept of what they do is what the Obama team must learn how to deal with.
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If Rick Stengel had any higher concept of journalism, he wouldn’t accept this kind of stuff to publish.

Were you there? I thought I saw somebody that looked like KT.
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He introduces himself to Obama near the end of the clip.

“When you think about the fact that Obama and members of Congress were elected to actually *govern,* the press is actually a very powerful interest group whose interests and demands must be addressed, lest they impede the actual job of governing. To do that, the Obamas have to play to the egos, satisfy the demands, just like any other powerful interest group. The press and their demands are, in short, a distraction from their real job of governing.”
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That is, of course, compounded by their credulous responses to “conservative” sources who’s main unstated purpose is to obstruct successful progressive governing. The fact that their own specific impact on shaping the public opinion and the policy debate is outside the sphere of legitimate debate only for them is a perfect window into how the rules of corporatist journalism (another subject outside the sphere of legitimate debate) and their own self-conceit has destroyed their credibility and hollowed their industry, all while helping to bring the world to the precipice through widespread ignorance and misperception.

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Lap dog
One eager to do another’s bidding, especially in order to maintain a position of privilege or favor
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Example: The reporter, eager not to be thrown off the campaign like other representatives of TIME magazine, insisted that John McCain was incapable of lying.

Hey did anyone catch Incorrigible Moron asking Gibbs a question? Seriously Scherer…eye patch, was I the only one who heard the ‘Andy Griffith Show’ whistling theme song when you were on camera? How does this press tough guy schtick work w/ a mug like that? Michael wanted to know what a limited number of exceptions to the new lobbying rules meant…would it be dozens or hundreds. Brilliant.