AIG Lessons

Jay Newton-Small:
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As somebody who will no doubt be responsible for “more criticism”, and who will demand that the Administration “make more adjustments”, and who has serious questions about the rightness of direction with respect to important issues, I must say that Ed Henry is an assclown.
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That question was beneath Obama to answer; it was tabloid and silly, like CNN.

Tonight was a very good sell that continues to pin down Republicans as marginalized members of the “party of no.”

And Ed Henry must be fired immediately.

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

…and Jake “Block Me Amadeus” Tapper’s questions were typical of the priorities and perspective of Beltway Media Stars: all process, conflict-mongering and irrelevant to the concerns of most Americans.
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TAPPER: Thank you, Mr. President. Right now on Capitol Hill, Senate Democrats are writing a budget, and according to press accounts and their own statements, they’re not including the middle-class tax cut that you include in the stimulus. They’re talking about phasing that out. They’re not including the cap-and-trade that you have in your budget, and they’re not including other measures. I know when you outlined your four priorities over the weekend, a number of these things were not in there. Will you sign a budget if it does not contain a middle-class tax cut, does not contain cap-and- trade?*

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The most pressing issue of the day is not what Obama and the Congress disagree over during the legislative process, Jake Tapper, you pompous, blow-dried tool.
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TAPPER: So is that a yes, sir? You’re willing to sign a budget that doesn’t have those two provisions?

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Nice of you to waste everyone’s time acting out your own “hard-boiled reporter” fantasies of yourself at a prime-time presidential press conference about real things in a national crisis, you self-aggrandizing Just-For-Men model.
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F*cking pompous tool.

Not exactly a hero or anything, but Ed Henry was one of the rare MSM sheeple that actually made at least a little effort to catch the Bush Cabal in mid-lies during the second term, such as this example:
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http://thinkprogress.org/2007/02/14/cnns-ed-henry-presses-bush-on-contradictions-in-iran-intelligence/
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And his question to Obama is actually with some merit, IMHO.

sweet. anyone has a link to the full newser? totally missed it and i can only find snippets.

Ed Henry
Jake Tapper
Chuck Todd
Chip Reid
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One more uselss than the other. The deterioration in the quality of network correspondents is disturbing. Sam Donaldson certainly had moments of jackassery, but wasn’t trying to play some silly “I outsmarted the President” game. He asked questions about issues and policy, not process and photo ops.
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Chuck Todd’s question had to set some kind of record for Teh Stoopit.

viciousmaniac:
I agree, I actually like Ed a lot. It was just a very telling exchange. JNS

Here’s the link to the full transcript:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/24/us/politics/24text-obama.html

Maybe media companies are collapsing because there are so many stupid people working in it. Stupid is no longer a winning business model. Why don’t they try smart for the new business model? It would be unique.

awesome JNS! ur the best

is this some sort of contractual thing (aig anyone?) that keeps people from just putting the vid online or is it just because of technicalities?

The Ed Henry smack-down – highlight of the press conference. Loved It!

I ask again, why is Time magazine paying Mikey Scherer to go to pressers and sit on his hands? I don’t think he has asked a question yet, even of Robert Gibbs. Hell I could do better reporting on the White House just from watching CSPAN every day.

I actually preferred the Republican smackdown about not having their own alternative budget because they know the CBO will show the same or worse deficit projections for anything they come up with too.

Where were all the outraged pundits and politicians when they were deregulating the financial markets in the first place? They have reserved their outrage for the people who get to clean up the mess, and can’t do it in 5 weeks. They missed the formation of the mess, just like they missed the fact that Iraq didn’t have any WMD.

take it easy on mikey dude. if it depended on his liking of long posts, i’d prolly get a full working video link to the full newser. now im just getting POLITICO-length snippets lol.

JNS, thank you for actually reading and responding to our comments. Ed Henry needs to think thru his questions before he asks them. MS needs to think of some questions and then ask them.

TPM’s banner photo made me want to make my first lol pic of POTUS. This one’s for you, Ed.
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http://mine.icanhascheezburger.com/view.aspx?ciid=3758291
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SZ…lol @ Just for Men model….so true!

Sen. Grassley had a good idea a few days ago, but he had the wrong subjects. After tonight’s uniformly miserable performance it’s the broadcast contingent of the WH press corps who should consider seppuku as a career-capper.

I’ve got my problems with Obama, but when I hear or read things like this:
Well, it took us a couple of days because I like to know what I’m talking about before I speak.
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I can’t help but yell YEAH BOY!

iwasindependent
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That. Was. AWESOME!

Don’t Mess with Malia & Sasha…Didn’t Ed Henry mention the Obama daughters in his question? I think that was what pissed off Obama. So he shut Ed Henry down, it was such a shut down, that even the other members of the press corps laughed at Ed too. Go back and re-watch the tape, they laughed at him

And you know it hit home since after the press conference, CNN was hating on POTUS: “He looked tired” “He seemed angry”, etc…

Whatevah CNN! Is it any wonder CNN is 4th in the ratings

What made Ed question so bad was that he tried to name drops the Obama daughters, that whole “what about your daughters” crap. If there is one thing we’ve learned, do not mess with the Obama daughters. Haven’t anyone noticed yet, that all the vulgar criticism have been directed to Obama or Michelle, not Malia or Sasha.

That is where the line was drawn, and that was what made Ed Hengy’s question rude, he was trying to get a rise of POTUS by mentioning the daughters. Well he poke the lion, and the lion bit his head off.

Some said on DKOS, wouldn’t it have been just as rude to ask Bush a question like “what if it was your daughters…” in reference to 9/11 or Katrina.

That’s where Ed’s question went wrong. Plus, he asked once and POTUS answered, but the mofo asked the same question again?

don’t hate on CNN. i don’t watch msnbc because it’s too childish for my personal liking. (Anyone watches Rachel Maddow?) I only watch Foxnews for entertainment value. nothing like a slice of pizza with a couple of friends, jamming and watching O’reilly or Hannity or Beck’s eyes. so that leaves only CNN as a high value production and less than doctrinaire and ideological reporting.
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love tapper todd and henry but hey dude he asked for it lol

Compare Obama 3/24/09:

Bankers and executives on Wall Street need to realize that enriching themselves on the taxpayer’s dime is inexcusable, that the days of outsize rewards and reckless speculation that puts us all at risk have to be over. At the same time, the rest of us can’t afford to demonize every investor or entrepreneur who seeks to make a profit. That drive is what has always fueled our prosperity, and it is what will ultimately get these banks lending and our economy moving once more.

Paul Dirks 2/27/09

Much of our political thought involves imagining undeserving people who are getting benefits at our expense. It works in two directions. Whether you imagine shiftless unemployed people who nevertheless manage to go to doctors and send their kids to school, or fat-cat bank executives flying down to the VI for ‘retreats’ on their yachts on the government dime, the process of imagining itself drives our emotional reaction and eventually our voting behavior.
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I only say this because, while its easy to demonize “bank shareholders” as deserving what they get, the truth is that many ‘shareholders’ are in fact Mutual Funds that are holding the retirement savings of millions of ordinary Americans.
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Much of what we face now will be a matter of allocating discomfort so that we feel we’re rising and falling together, but the process of pointing outward to decide who should be hurting hasn’t helped us so far and won’t help us in the long run.
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You don’t suppose he reads my blog,do you?

Tapper/todd/henry = larry/curly/moe
They still seem to think that they are talking to the mayor of wasilla—there is a way of asking a question & being direct without being disrespectful…this is the president of the united states that your speaking to moe!
Its like they were auditionning for fox news.

I am heartened to read the reaction to Tapper and Ed Henry. The American people deserve better reporting than this. Ed Henry deserved the smackdown for the idiocy of the question and bringing the Obama daughters into the equation definitely goes beyond the pale.

That’s a fine, fine statement, Dirks.
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Yours, I mean.

Jay Newton-Small:
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I shall amend my criticism of Ed Henry.
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He is not an assclown, he is merely today’s assclown.

…and one more thing.
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It seems that the public interest value of such a thing as a televised presidential press conference would be information.
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This high-ceremony, protocol-intense ritual seems grossly inefficient for such a public interest.
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Is this not so, Jay Newton-Small?
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Is the problem that the public interest is held to be of lower priority than other interests by the parties involved in the production of presidential press conferences, or is it a lack of imagination with respect to this ritual’s replacement?

viciousmaniac and stuartzechman:
I felt bad because I don’t like like the idea of being mean and piling on a colleague whose body of reporting I respect so I updated.
JNS

Jay Newton-Small:
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Thanks for the update, more information is better, and Ed should have the opportunity to tell everyone why he is not today’s assclown.
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Gratuitous insults aside,
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My question was really about the fact that, as we have now learned in recent days, obviously, this administration knew much sooner about these bonuses.
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Why didn’t Ed ask that question, if it was so important to the future of the nation?
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My criticism stands, I think.
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Why is when Geithner knew about these bonuses an important question per se?
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What does it have to do with the prospects of success for Geithner’s bank rescue plan, and the lack of public consideration of any contingency plans?
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Good on you for not piling on, Jay Newton-Small, and I’m sorry about the gratuitous insults. I should have just said that he asked a bizarre question, given the past two days’ developments with Treasury.

stuartzechman,
The protocol is the subject of highly complex negotiations between the White House and the White House Correspondent’s Association. It is a pain but given the money that goes into preempting all major nets for an hour and the hierarchy of the journalistic companies involved — who sits where based on circulation, diaspora, viewers, etc — it is, alas, probably the only way it can be done at this time. Access is currency and the fight behind the scenes for it is pretty amazing. Just being one of the 160 reporters in the room is a major scrum for some of the foreign and smaller news organizations. Conversely, there’s nothing more terrifying than being called on for the first time in one of these pressers. I stuttered my way through my first one with Bush in 2004. So the impressive theater also gives Obama a slight advantage with the greener reporters.
JNS

Thank you so much for responding to commentary, Jay Newton-Small.
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These insights are extraordinarily valuable to those of us who are of the opinion that the machinations of the press corps are inextricable from the outcomes of the current political system.

First rule of membership in the Village is you must protect the rest of the Village
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Ed Henry has been a pretentious prick since President Obama took office. And his question tonight was nothing more than ass clownery. His question didn’t have any context about whether President Obama learned of the bonuses much sooner which makes him an ass clown AND a liar. If he wanted to ask the President if he knew about the bonuses much sooner then he had every opportunity to ask that question. Yet he didn’t and he got his head handed to him on a platter for his trouble. And as lupercal pointed out he tried to strike a low blow by bringing the President’s daughters into his questioning. Phuck him, he deserved exactly what he got. Now if Ed Henry is a liar and we all saw what he actually asked, what does that make JNS for being his stenographer?

No offense JNS, I understand he your friend or what ever, but what Ed said he was asking is not what he asked. Review the tape if ya gotta, but what he asked was a low ball question and tried to gotcha Obama by phrasing the question and including the Obama daughters. Sorry, but it sounds to me that Henry and CNN are trying to clean themselves up after Obama KO’d them to the floor. This is evidenced by the fact that afterwards, it seemed like CNN went out of their way to criticize the press conference. Oh Obama looked tired, cranky, angry, testy. Whatevah. The got pwned, and your friend Ed and CNN know it. Now for more evidence let’s see how CNN and Ed Henry covers it for the next few days.

Ed Henry may have been a good reporter at some point, but that point preceeded his appointment to the White House post. He has made obvious attempts at asking “gotcha” questions, in an apparent attempt to fit in with the cool kids. It is a sad truth that the best questions were asked by two foreign reporters and the reporter from Ebony. Chuck Todd is out of his league, and nobody ever calls on Mikey Scherer. What a great representation of the fourth estate!

Note to Ed Henry: The next time you ask a question at a press confrence do not attempt to bring the First Daughters into the mix. Of course, they will be much older then but still out of bounds.

The problem I have with many of the questions asked by reporters, is the implication of the question, or the way it is framed. Here is how I interpreted the two questions of Ed Henry (right or wrong, this is how I perceived them):
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1. Mr. President: How can you sleep at night when you introduced an irresponsible budget that will bankrupt our nation and cause great turmoil for decades to come, even causing great financial distress to your young daughters who you claim to love.
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2. Mr. President: Why did you not join the outrage bandwagon sooner? It seems like you were sticking your finger up into the air to gauge the direction of the political winds before expressing your “outrage”. Did you take a poll first?
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When I saw Ed Henry on CNN after the presser saying that, “My question was really about the fact that, as we have now learned in recent days, obviously, this administration knew much sooner about these bonuses.” I was scratching my head. Because that was NOT the question he asked. I mean, why not frame the question, “We have reports from XXX and YYY that the administration knew sooner about these bonuses, but did nothing about them. Mr. President, when did you find out about these bonuses, and why didn’t you do more to abrogate them?” or something to that effect. At least that would have had the benefit of being true. Unlike his dissembling about the actual meaning of his question for the benefit of his viewers.

Yeah, that might have been how Ed Henry’s question sounded in his head, but the question that came out of his mouth was small-minded and pathetic. My wife and I had each yelled at Henry before the president brushed him off with a little more class.
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The worst of the day, as always, was Chip Reid. I hope he’s paying the RNC royalties on the questions he’s stealing from their press releases.

A question to JNS regarding: Henry is a good reporter and I didn’t mean to be harsh. Would you be so kind as to mention a few reporters who are not good? Just wondering, because it appears SOP to msm types is uncritical mutual stroking.
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Steve Benen noticed something very interesting about the questions last night:
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… All of these questions came from different reporters, suggesting that the White House press corps has more or less internalized Republican talking points (again). In the midst of a dangerous global recession, journalists are desperate to know when this administration will start moving towards a more balanced budget — which is exactly what congressional Republicans are focusing on (and, come to think of it, what congressional Republicans focused on in the 1930s, too). Note to the White House press corps: under these circumstances, deficits aren’t our most pressing problem. This preoccupation with the issue isn’t helping anyone.

Related to my previous comment on msm “uncritical mutual stroking”, I was disappointed when Rachel didn’t laugh a bit at Todd for his totally stoopid question about sacrifice. Back when he was doing campaign reporting, Todd seemed to be not stoopid, but now that he is “Mr. very important WH reporter” all the brain cells seem to have slipped away.
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Here’s Yglesias on Sacrifice.

NBC’s Chuck Todd asked why Obama hadn’t “called for some form of sacrifice” from the public to help with the economic recovery.
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Okay this IMHO is teh stoopiest and most clueless question asked last night. Is Chuck really that out of touch? I personally have friends who have either been laid off, or their spouse has been laid off, have dropped out of college and have had to room together to try to hang on. I know there are tent cities springing up around the country, people close to retirement have lost over half of their life savings with no time to make it up, people are taking jobs as cab drivers, giving up their dignity to work as strippers and going completely without healthcare. What else is the president supposed to ask them to f**king give that’s going to make the ecomony better? Eating more cat food?
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Unlike the Iraq war were there probably was a very sizable portion of Americans who did not have a family member serving or a personal stake in the war. And the question at that time would be pertinent because asking those of us to help the cause could make it better for that small portion who are shoulding the burden. I would bet without the benefit of a poll that there are a lot Americans who have already have personal stake in this economic crisis.
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So my question to Chuck Todd is what are you personally willing to give up to help the ecomony? I would suggest giving up time asking clueless questions on national tv as a good start.

Watched the follow up at MSNBC and CNN. The former: pretty upbeat on Obama. But the Best Pol Team had its knickers in a twist. Bennett was warmly supportive of Ed. Now JNS knows Ed so her reaction is understandable. But Ed comes across as a pompous know it all and it shows. John King can match him on that score any day.

Chuck Todd is out of his league. He should go back to analysing polling data. Chip Reid has to deal with his “chip on the shoulder” and shelve Republican TPs. Jake Tapper has to give up the ” I am the real tough guy in the room and I demand transparency” routine.

All in all this is one very low grade front line at the WH pressers.

“Chuck Todd is out of his league. He should go back to analysing polling data.”
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Bitter-I am so glad you made that point, because Chuck is very good with analysing poll data and presenting it in an way that is much easier to follow and understand. However, that does not make him a good WH correspondent in the very same way a good WH reporter could suck at explaining poll data. It not his or her thing.
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However, the reason why John King and Chuck Todd got promoted at their respective networks is because management makes the assumption that because their viewers like seening John and Chuck do their main thing that translates into viewers wanting to see them do any job. If they can actually do it not does not matter.

Compare last night’s press conference with the town hall meetings in Orange County.
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One of these Q&A sessions featured a number of smart, insightful questions on serious issues that actually matter. The other one featured Chuck Todd and Ed Henry.

ottoman wins the thread.
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More on gunny’s point from John Amato: Typical Villager question. No normal person would ask for the American people to suffer and make additional sacrifices through a period where their wages have declined, job losses are skyrocketing and health-care costs are astronomical. These inside-the-Beltway pundits seem to talk to each other rather than for us. It’s like we don’t exist to them. They all seem to live in Broder’s universe, and we’re mice in a cage waiting for some scraps. I’d like to know what the press corps would sacrifice if the president asked them for one.

Gunny, speaking of King, here’s John Cole: CNN now has John King describing a word cloud of the press conference as part of their post press conference “analysis.” I wish I was kidding. These guys are in so far over their head with Obama and they don’t even realize it. I wonder if they will bring back the “human hologram.”
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asshats all.

How dishonest is it for JNS to publish Ed Henry’s fradulent response and try to tie it to the only commenter on the whole thread who had ANYTHING good to say about Ed Henry as if she was under pressure to do so. What a steaming pile of bullsh*t.

Thanks Jay for blogging with us.

Is the media’s smarts shrinking so much that it fits on the head of a pin?

Beginning to think so. From what I’m reading, the media’s meme of the day is: Obama got angry! (responding to Henry’s question which is complete nonsense) and Obama used a teleprompter! (the first words out of David Gregory’s mouth on NBC post-press conference).

What a pack of idiots. Jay, Karen, and Joe excepted, of course.

Ed Henry’s self-serving self-revisionism also says a lot about his lack of professional abilities. When you resort to relying in hindsight on an assertion that something tangential to the question is “obviously” the case (“this administration knew much sooner about these bonuses,”) you haven’t done your homework. Henry got his a$$ handed to him pure and simple – if he had any class he’d admit it, learn from the experience and move on.

Well, I guess I’m not qualified to be President then. Because it really doesn’t take me that long to figure out that if the employees at AIG-FP blew up their company and threatened the integrity of the economies around the globe by recklessly, fraudulently, and literally writing checks that the shareholders couldn’t cash…well those people should probably be forcibly removed from their reins of power and NOT paid millions of dollars in bonuses.
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Now, I agree that it might take me a couple of days to consult with counsel and financial experts in order to ascertain whether or not I could waterboard the offenders. But, no, it would not take me days to gin up some photo-op outrage.

I wonder why no one has mentioned that the most specific question of the night, from Kevin Chappell, was blown off by BHO.
Too small a publication I guess.

JNS, et al:
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Don’t you think it’s about time to put an end to this human caricature of an autoimmmune disorder?
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I mean, JNS plays the flute, again, again, again and you follow her like the Pied Piper – knowing full well that the money that AIG and the other institutions are partying on is not the money Obama has distributed!
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Since were all into this, why don’t we all just follow Jindal’s flute too! I mean lets get creative and do Rush Limbaughs’ bidding, too!

Oops! I’m sorry!
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I didn’t provide the link to the bandwagon that you can gleefully jump on next:
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/03/25/jindal-defends-those-who-want-obama-to-fail/

Ed Henry is one of the main reasons why I no longer watch CNN. Have you really seen his reporting lately, Jay? He is way out of his league, his analysis is paper thin and he has a constant juvenile smirk on his face. The O smackdown was very satisfying and well deserved for Henry’s pathetic attempt at a gotcha question. And don’t get me started on Ed’s barberpoll, red and white tie which really reinforced his total lack of gravitas.

Leaving aside the manner in which Henry asked his question (I haven’t watched the video), and the fact that it WAS a gotcha question, he’s right on the basic facts. Geithner said he found out on the 10th, but it turned out that he had known a lot earlier than that.
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Pfft…his bonus situation is completely fabricated anyway. I’m glad I got a little bit of amusement out of it.

Dumbells! What idiocy!
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Let’s just turn this autoimmune disorder into a real feeding frenzy:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29780457/
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Just to remind you folks about just how much Rusty, spob and Hulu are enjoying this self-indulgent distruction:
http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/bernanke-says-tried-stop-aig/story.aspx?guid=%7BEE10AA88-A43E-41B0-9630-4216F9BB035C%7D&siteid=msn

Obama made his bed, now he has to sleep in it. The fact that there are idiots in the GOP and/or the media who are happy to capitalize with disingenuous criticism is not of too much concern to me. Obama is blowing it on the bank/AIG bailouts. His photo-op outrage has been too little, too late. And it should never have been limited to the AIG bonuses. Every day there are a thousand outrages. If Obama doesn’t feel it or can’t communicate it, then that is his failing, not anybody else’s.

sgwhiteinfla Says:
” .. I ask again, why is Time magazine paying Mikey Scherer to go to pressers and sit on his hands? ..”

As the preacher said when asked why he just sits there while disasters strike: “They also serve those who sit and wait.”

Oh let’s face it, there is just way too much supposition masquerading as facts for any of us to judge the actions of this administration fairly. Pointing to a statement that someone was in the room so he must have known and is therefore lying now when he denies knowing — please give me a break. Am I supposed to believe that on a Saturday or Sunday morning in September of 2008 they all get together to face the fact that AIGFP has just run the company off a cliff and discuss how they could manage to do the least damage on the way down, I find it hard to imagine that in speaking of employee compensation it was at the level of detail that would be necessary to learn that 165 million dollars in bonuses would be going to AIGFP in March of 2009.

Ed the Journalist on Rocky the Republican Operative:
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“HENRY: No, I mean Hollywood couldn’t have scripted this any better: A gritty guy named Rockey, slugging it out, trying to realize his dream, and getting that dream realized against all odds. Wait, actually I think Hollywood did script that. In fact, Rockey Vaccarella, not Rocky Balboa, came out to the cameras here at the White House, and told reporters at one point, sent a shout out to his wife, “Hey, yo, Carolyn, we did it.” It did sound like a movie, a happy ending for Rockey. He’s even making a movie himself chronicling his trip. He basically took a FEMA-style trailer down from New Orleans, up here to Washington, trying to get this meeting with the president. What he says he wanted to do is basically highlight the problems that still exist down there. But he’s also traveling to praise President Bush and the help that the federal government has already given. And that may help explain why, while the White House initially told us the president’s schedule was full yesterday — as it was, he was traveling in Minnesota, he couldn’t have dinner with Rockey — they did find time this morning for them to meet in the Oval Office and then come out to the South Lawn. Take a listen.”
http://mediamatters.org/items/200608240002
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“Turns out that the earthy Vaccarella — a highly successful businessman in the fast-food industry — is indeed a Republican pol, having run unsuccessfully under the GOP banner for a seat on the St. Bernard Parish commission back in 1999.
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/8280.html
Ed Henry and JNS, two peas in a pod.

MSM doesn’t get it. They represent corporate America. I love it when they try to pretend that they are reporting for the people. What a bunch of bull. The best questions of the night came from Ebony and Univision.