Quick thoughts on Obama's primetime presser

1 -- Disastrous. For a man who can give one helluva speech, or can at least have the competence to read a teleprompter, he can't speak extemporaneously to save his butt. I made a note of this repeatedly during the election, both on Hugh's show and here, that he simply can't think on his feet. I counted two, and possibly three, "pregnant pauses" during the presser where he seemed to not have an answer ready for a question.

2 -- We half-expected a love-in from the press last night. Not so. We expected softballs, and the press actually tossed a couple high, hard fastballs at him. Major Garrett's shot at Joe Biden was amusing when Obama threw his vice president under the bus, "not surprisingly."

3 -- Speaking of the press, can we please get rid of Helen Thomas? This woman is an embarrassment to journalism. Seriously, her question regarding nations in the Middle East that have nukes was stupid and amateurish. It was a blatant attempt to "trick" Obama into admitting Israel has them (though the notion has NEVER been confirmed by Israel) so she could do another pro-terrorist follow-up -- in essence, akin to her Hezbollah view moment with Tony Snow.

4 -- Who let the idiot in last night that fired off the Alex Rodriguez question, and can anyone tell me what his steroid use has to do with stimulating the economy? That was the point of the presser last night, not cheating baseball players. That was Michael Fletcher from the Washington Post, and if I were his boss, I'd yank him from the White House press corps.

5 -- The woman from Reuters asked him a question about how to engage Iran, and Obama bungled the question completely. The mullahs won't react to diplomacy. the mullahs recognize one thing, and that's force.

6 -- The question about Leahy's "truth commission." The nutroots are probably seething this morning because Obama wouldn't be firm on holding any Bush administration official criminally responsible for perceived (wrongly, I might add) war crimes. He said he was more interested in looking forward than revisiting the past. Kudos to him for disarming his nutroots followers, but there is a time when the piper must be paid, and they won't be happy if he doesn't go along with Looney Leahy.

7 -- He said Republicans were brought in on the negotiations for the Pork-A-Palooza. That's a lie. Nancy Pelosi didn't allow any Republican participation in creating the bill. Remember that the Blue Dogs in the House sent a letter to Steny Hoyer in an effort to get Pelosi to return to the rules. They saw she ran roughshod over them and the Republicans. That's not including them in. that's shutting them out, and Obama lied in his claim that Republicans have been consulted since the get go.

8 -- Who's bright idea was it to give Ed Schultz a front-row seat? This guy is as big a hack as Helen Thomas is. Neither one has a right to be there. Also, the Huffington Post was present at the presser last night. I guess nutroots membership has it's privileges.

Final Thought -- This was supposed to be a press conference, but he spent the beginning of it reading a statement off a teleprompter. A press conference is give and take between the person fielding the questions, and those firing the questions at him. This wasn't a press conference. It was almost like a lecture. If we wanted to be lectured, we would have replayed his campaign speeches. The nation is looking for it's leader to present detailed solutions. Last night, Obama didn't deliver that. He delivered more rhetoric, and little substance.

Publius II