Why bother? Because the TV news portion of the White House Press Corps is an exclusive country club of identical privileged tools who've convinced themselves that arguing with a stonewalling flack for an hour a day is doing the dirty work of democracy. And insulting one of them is tantamount to censorship.

White House communications director Anita Dunn said Fox News doesn't behave "the way that legitimate news organizations behave," which is an objectively true statement, as long as your definition of "legitimate news organizations" means organizations in operation after the death of William Randolph Hearst.

This outraged Tapper!

Tapper: It's escaped none of our notice that the White House has decided in the last few weeks to declare one of our sister organizations "not a news organization" and to tell the rest of us not to treat them like a news organization. Can you explain why it's appropriate for the White House to decide that a news organization is not one –

(Crosstalk)

Gibbs: Jake, we render, we render an opinion based on some of their coverage and the fairness that, the fairness of that coverage.

Tapper: But that's a pretty sweeping declaration that they are "not a news organization." How are they any different from, say –

Gibbs: ABC -

Tapper: ABC. MSNBC. Univision. I mean how are they any different?

Gibbs: You and I should watch sometime around 9 o'clock tonight. Or 5 o'clock this afternoon.

Tapper: I'm not talking about their opinion programming or issues you have with certain reports. I'm talking about saying thousands of individuals who work for a media organization, do not work for a "news organization" — why is that appropriate for the White House to say?

Gibbs: That's our opinion.

First, they didn't say that Fox is "not a news organization." We just said what they said, and it's true. Eric Boehlert lays out many examples of Fox's "news" programs fucking the truth up, though really their sponsoring of, promotion of, and reporting on the fucking tea parties is all the proof you need that they don't behave anything like ABC News.

Back when Jake Tapper worked for Salon, would he have considered it a ridiculous attack to say that that online 'zine was not objective? Would've he really have quibbled with the idea that a site run by liberal journalist David Talbot might not be considered "legitimate" by a Republican president? Even if they were sending real-life good journalists like Tapper and, later, Michael Scherer to cover the White House? (Of course, no site that publishes Camille Paglia and Cary Tennis can be considered legitimate, but their terribleness transcends partisanship.)

Does Tapper understand that despite the fact that he is very good, personal friends with Major Garrett, Garrett's employer is actually a research and communications arm of the conservative movement? In a much, much, much more direct and partisan fashion than almost any liberal "equivalent" news source? Like, The Nation and Keith Olbermann and The New Republic and Air America are liberal news organizations staffed and run by liberals dedicated to achieving liberal political goals, but if they've ever all joined together to organize a partisan campaign as PR-savvy as the Tea Parties (or the Iraq War) while still maintaining poses of objectivity, we've missed in next to the thousands of op-eds and Special Comments on how Obama is continuing Bush's torture regime and Senate Democrats are spineless cowards.

But now, once again, Jake Tapper is a hero to the right-wing blogs. Because he knows that it is the objective reporters job to always object, to everything. If the President says the ocean is quite large, it is heroic reporting to demand that his spokesman acknowledge that outer space is even bigger.

The word was "strategery," which acclaimed Land of the Lost actor Will Farrell made famous back in 2000, when he lampooned the man who would become President George W. Bush.

Always hip to popular culture, Press Secretary Gibbs instantly recognized the reference, saying, ""I love it how a 'Saturday Night Live' word has entered into the lexicon." He then threatened to curse.

Who knew government could be so darn great? Plus, as an added bonus, it gives Gibbs' opponents some fuel for their "he's not dignified" fire.

Here's the clip of Farrell on SNL, in case you don't remember...

The White House.

Despite the fact that race, racism and racists have long flapped in the air of rhetoric surrounding the President, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs had to dance around the media's current Carter obsession by stressing, thrice, that Obama doesn't think people are angry because he's black.

Well, we know that's not true, so aren't Gibbs and the President exasperating the problem by pretending it doesn't exist? Yes, discussing our nation's sad history of slavery and discrimination isn't always comfortable, but considering all the recent discussions, not to mention the flurry of racist Twitters hurled at Kanye West, wouldn't it be nice to have the White House eventually sit down, face the facts, and talk the nation through this whole thing, so that, by some miracle, we can put it behind us?

For, in the space of lack created, there's now more room for people like Glenn Beck to weigh in on the matter. And you can be sure that he's got plenty to say, like aligning Carter's views with those put forth by the nation's greatest enemy: Osama bin Laden.

Meanwhile, Carter remains more isolated than ever, for every Democrat under the sun's backing away from him.

Image via digicla's flickr.

Apparently undeterred by advertising boycotts — which now total 46 — Beck this evening unleashed a torrent of accusations against Barack Obama and his plans for AmeriCorps, which he equates with Adolf Hitler's "brown shirts." For those not as familiar with Nazis as Beck, he drives his hysteria home by comparing Obama to Saddam Hussein.

Vets for Freedom vice chairman David Bellavia and the Heritage Foundation's Matthew Spalding help egg on Beck, who thinks Obama's organizing an army to quash its enemies, create a horrific "national society" and generally destroy democracy.

Though clearly outraged, Beck also seems sadly resigned, muttering, "This is what I've been warning for a very long time." He goes on to beg the White House to declare it doesn't support "revolutionary communists." Robert Gibbs, we're sure, will get right on that...

It goes like this: Garrett claims to have heard from people who received Axelrod's e-mail but never signed up to receive e-mails from the White House. So, he asks, how did those people get the email?

After some back-and-forth, Gibbs walks right into it, responding that he'd have to see the emails in order to determine whether or not WAIT A MINUTE YOU WANT THEIR NAMES!?!?!? WHY DO YOU WANT THEIR NAMES?!?!?! TO ADD TO YOUR ENEMIES LIST?

Since there's no way to check whether Garrett's claims are true — i.e., check Garrett's sources' email addresses against the list of people who signed up to receive White House emails or whether the unwanted emails actually came from the White House — without actually getting the emails to which Garrett refers, Barack Obama is Richard Milhous Stalin. Bravo!

As it happens, a commenter on our earlier post about Axelrod's spam claimed that "Axelrod spammed EVERY federal government email address with it this morning." We checked with a friend who works in the federal bureaucracy, and he said he didn't get it. Not that we'd put it past them. We've asked the commenter to provide evidence if he has it. If you got Axelrod's email and work for the federal government, or never signed up for it, let us know.

But seriously, is this not one of the best presidential photographs of all-time? Even Sarkozy looks like he's sneaking a peek, though he's French, so we expect him to do it. However, in Obama's defense, that is a great ass!

And naturally, Drudge is having some fun with this.

We can't wait to see Robert Gibbs try to spin this one.

Photo by Jason Reed for Reuters/Landov via TMZ

Well, Michael, maybe you like Silvio Berlusconi because, as you point out, he spends his time frolicking with topless women half his age and getting a divorce? Is there anything going on in your life that could cause you to relate to that?

No, the reason Wolff likes Berlusconi is that he lives a life without consequences:

He's been indicted a vast number of times, always escaping through some form of banana republic or slapstick jurisprudence, and doing it with almost no pretense that he's not doing it. Getting away with it has become part of his charm. [Emphasis ours.]

Speaking of consequences: When we got an e-mail last night with a link to Wolff's new column in the July issue of Vanity Fair, we were excited—for once!—to read it. We'd been awaiting what we'd heard would be a lengthy confessional examination of Wolff's affair with a 28-year-old Vanity Fair intern named Victoria Floethe, the subsequent dissolution of his marriage, and the gossip machinery that kicked into gear to publicize the mess. We knew it was coming because Wolff had come by the office to interview our boss Nick Denton for the story—way back in March. It sounded like a nifty idea.

But sadly no. Wolff instead has chosen to write about the Obama press shop, which he finds "brilliant and successful and certainly calculated." But it has a sinister side: With the mainstream newspapers dying before their eyes and the upstart—and partisan—digital media hungry for any old handout, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and his co-horts are "in greater control of the media than any administration before them." That does sound bad, but we wonder if Wolff's column might have come out a little sunnier had he not been forced to write this humbling paragraph:

Even though I've been invited to the White House for a talk with Gibbs, there's an abrupt cancellation when, after some chitchat with Burton, it becomes clear that my interest is in process rather than, per se, message. And then a kind of sudden vaporization-no Gibbs, according to Marissa Hopkins, his assistant, "for the foreseeable future."

That's right—the savvy bastards were on to him. What sort of manipulative power-mongers are these, who don't want to talk about process and insist on substance?

We e-mailed Wolff to ask him when the good-sounding column will come out. He replied, "Right now, Obama administration [sic] seems more pressing than my personal life—an evergreen if there ever was one." That sounded to us like it got killed. But no, he says: "Yet to be written. Will keep you posted." Please do, Michael.

Robert Gibbs got all huffy about it today, but please keep in mind that he, as White House Press Secretary, is a professional obfuscater.

So. Major General Antonio Taguba, who conducted the Abu Ghraib investigation, acknowledged the existence of a couple specific photos of sexual abuse and rape. "Allegations of rape and abuse were included in his 2004 report but the fact there were photographs was never revealed," the Telegraph reported. But hey, is that actually true? Salon posted a lot of additional Abu Ghraib photos back in 2006 and Larisa Alexandrovna just reposted two (NSFW, disturbing) that might represent some of the specific photos of sexual abuse that the Telegraph describes?

In other words, the denial might be factually true, because these photos were already released, while the administration sits on the rest of them, which don't show those specific abuses.

Or, maybe, the Pentagon and Gibbs are lying. Because frankly we believe Taguba before them.

No surprises: The senior admistration officials quoted in yesterday afternoon's raft of online stories about Sotomayor's nomination were David Axelrod and Vice President Joe Biden's chief of staff Ron Klain.

Several journalists in the Roosevelt Room briefing protested, saying there was no reason the officials couldn't speak on the record. One of the briefers, senior adviser David Axelrod, would be making a similar case on Fox News, CNN, MSNBC and PBS within hours. But Press Secretary Robert Gibbs stood his ground: No names could be attached.

The whole practice is a farce. These are not furtive conversations with sources conducted in parking garages—they are mini-press-conferences convened by the White House press office. Transcripts are often published by the White House, but with the names redacted. So what's the point of anonymity? The Los Angeles Times' James Rainey sums up the traditional White House case for stripping out the identities of the briefers: "The conventional answer (also offered by the Clinton and Bush White Houses) is that staffers should be anonymous and remain in the background, so as not to distract from the president and the day's news, in this case Obama's choice of the first Latina nominee for the Supremes."

That's nonsense. No reader would be so dazzled by Ron Klain's name as to forget what the story they are reading is about. The real reason is basic risk-aversion: The system has been in place for years, and to change it would only allow Klain and Axelrod's words to catch up with them later. They don't want any reporters to be able to say, "But you said...!" a month from now, when Sotomayor turns out to really be a foreigner or something (we read about that somewhere!). To upset the cozy little arrangement only invites potential headaches, and the downsides of briefing anonymously are obviously nil.

Unless you count whining from reporters. The Associated Press' Jennifer Loven tells Kurtz: "We protest in the strongest terms the Obama administration's frequent use of briefings done on a background basis...especially when the same officials briefing often appear ubiquitously on television shows with similar information." The strongest terms! Well, not quite. The strongest term available to Loven would be to not show up for the briefing, and to not allow her news organization to be used by the White House to deliver its spin anonymously. Press secretary Robert Gibbs knows this, and calls her bluff:

Asked for a response, Gibbs said it was "interesting" that the AP had no qualms about relying on unnamed "officials" in breaking the news of Sotomayor's nomination. "I'm not sure today is the day I'd make that argument," he said.

Another White House flack makes the same point to Rainey:

"As recently as this morning several staffers in our press office were contacted by reporters at the LA Times requesting background information on a variety of issues," Psaki e-mailed me. "We provided them with what they asked for and assume the practice is helpful since the requests from the LA Times and countless other papers continue."

Which is why Loven's legitimate complaint qualifies as a whine: It's coming from an active participant in the very snow-job she's decrying.

The irony of this debate is that it's over nothing: Axelrod made the TV rounds yesterday afternoon after that secret background briefing, and said almost precisely the same things that his "senior administration official" alter ego said, only this time you could see his face. Here's some side-by-side comparisons:

• Senior Administration Official:
  "The president made his final decision after the weekend and called Sotomayor around 9 p.m. ET Monday, a senior administration official added."

  Axelrod:
  "And then finally, last night, after giving it a lot of thought, he was in his study at 8:00 o'clock at night, and he made the decision. He picked up the phone and called her…."

• SAO:
  "She did what appeals court judges do, which is apply precedent," a senior administration official said of the case that is now before the Supreme Court. "That shows the kind of judicial restraint she brought to her job as a court of appeals judge. In the confirmation process, people are going to have to choose between attacking her for not applying the law or applying the law. People may not like the result, but she applied the law."

  Axelrod:
  "She ruled in that case on the law. In fact, the decision was rendered in keeping with the precedent of the 2nd circuit. And in the brief opinion the panel ruled—the panel said…they were bound by the precedent in the circuit. [Y]ou can't have it both ways. You can't say, I don't want judicial activists, and then when someone rules on the basis of legal precedent, you say they're legislating from the bench.

• SAO:
  "What the president has said is that he is looking for someone who embodies legal excellence, restraint, a sense of how judging works and an understanding of its real-world consequences," said a senior administration official.

  Axelrod:
  "He had a set of principles, Chris, that he was concerned about. One is he wanted someone who had clear legal excellence and broad experience…. [H]e wanted someone who brought a real-life experience to the court that would help animate those discussions and give people a sense about how the law impacts on real people."

• SAO:
  "The question for him was, 'Is this a person who's got the toughness, the intellectual capacity, to stand up to John Roberts?'" said one senior administration official. "He came out of his interview with her on Thursday and said that he had no concerns whatsoever about her intellectual ability to stand up to Roberts."

  Axelrod:
  "[Obama] was very impressed with his exchange with her, felt…her knowledge and her understanding of the law and her history and her mastery of case law was something very, very impressive. So…when she gets to the court, I think you are going to find that she`s an active and influential participant…."

• SAO:
  "[We]'re not expecting a war," a senior administration official said Tuesday.

  Axelrod:
  "I would hope that we could put together a large coalition of Republicans and Democrats for her nomination, and I hope that she gets a fair hearing. And I think she will."

• SAO:
  There was a "full vet," according to a senior administration official, and both her taxes and health were examined. Sotomayor has diabetes, and White House aides consulted both her doctor and other doctors to ensure that she was fit to serve.

  Axelrod:
  "Well, we had communications with her doctor, who provided a letter analyzing her health situation. We talked to other doctors. We believe that she's going to—her diabetes is well controlled. And we believe she's going to serve with distinction for many years to come."

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.But he was paying attention. We noticed yesterday that Tapper has altered the way he posts transcripts of the White House press briefings. He used to put his own questions in bold and render Gibbs' answers in italics, which we thought inverted, in terms of visual presentation, the relative weight that ought to be given to each—not to mention encapsulasted a certain self-regard that we and others had noticed in Tapper's professional style.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.But now he's putting Gibbs' answers in bold and his own queries in italics. Did he judiciously consider the issues raised by our post and, with grace and humility, re-examine his own practices with our critique in mind? We'll say yes, just for kicks.

When the first cell phone rang, during a discussion about photos of U.S. servicemembers abusing Iraqi detainees, Gibbs mildly admonished the class to "just put it on vibrate, man." After the second interruption, he demanded that the offender hand over the phone, which Gibbs then casually tossed to someone offstage. When CBS News' Bill Plante's phone rang, Gibbs just cold kicked him out of class. You know what they say about teachers: Their reward is in heaven.

This afternoon, Tapper asked White House press secretary Robert Gibbs about Joe Biden's crazy panic-inducing call for Americans to save themselves by withdrawing from society on the Today Show. Gibbs stammered and blinked a lot and reformulated Biden's comments into his dreamworld version in which they were totally anodyne.

Tapper followed up with his traditional furrowed brow, cocked eye, and subdued voice betraying just a hint of barely restrained outrage. We braced for dickishness!

With all due respect, and I sympathize with you trying to explain the vice president's comments, but that's not even remotely close to what he said.

Gibbs countered with, "Jake, I understand what he said. And I'm telling you what he meant to say." Everyone in the room laughed at him.

Score one for Journalist Jake! If you limit your outbursts to clean hits like that, Tapper, one day we'll stop juxtaposing your photograph with Paul Rudd playing Brian Fontana in Anchorman every time we write about you. Also, you asked a substantive, well-phrased question about torture at the White House press conference last night, so there's that.

For the record: We don't hate all gaffe-centered political reporting, just fake-gaffe-centered political reporting. This one was as real as they come.

Here is a lie, from Jake Tapper:

He's also keenly aware that there's a problem when the reporter becomes too much a part of the story. While his exchange with Robert Gibbs elevated his profile, that was not his objective. "The YouTubed exchange with Gibbs is a perfect example of something I didn't care for, not because I think I was wrong, but because the tone of that conversation took focus away from the more important issue - transparency - and put it where I don't particularly care for it, into a debate about me and Gibbs and who was right and who got the better of whom. Which serves no one," Tapper says.

Yes, the point of on-camera arguments between White House correspondents and press secretaries is always the noble pursuit of the truth, right? It's never just about setting yourself up as "tough" enough to eventually host a Sunday show or anything.

The thing is, Rush Limbaugh and National Review are jumping on the Tapper wagon for the same reason that idiot liberals all decided they loved David Gregory back in the say: because he was good at beating up on Scott McClellan. Good for him, he made a dumb guy look dumb.

Arguing with the press secretary is not actually a good way to get useful information for your audience. In fact, it is never a way of getting useful information for your audience. The secretary's job is to stonewall and lie. He will not eventually concede the argument and be like "ok, Tapper, you win, here are those lobbyist recusal documents!" Your job, correspondent, is to actually get the damn documents yourself, through reporting maybe! Unless of course you are too busy reporting important news on how the president lied to you about the smoking!

Gibbs was 20 minutes late because he was, you know, talking to the president, but that is no excuse! Someone—Tapper?—opened things by sounding typically annoying and entitled: he doesn't want "a big showdown" but "it irritates everybody here," when Gibbs is late. Did you know one reporter was forced to skip lunch? It's true and also GROW UP.

Here's CQ's transcript, missing the "irritates everyone" line:

GIBBS: Are you ready?

QUESTION: We're ready.

GIBBS: Do you want me to go back out? Sorry. QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

GIBBS: Well, I'd — I wanted to go talk to the president and get his thoughts on the bankers' meeting. So I apologize for...

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) I don't want it to be a big showdown, but (OFF-MIKE) everybody here (OFF-MIKE) be on time or (OFF-MIKE)

QUESTION: You guys gave us a two-minute — you did give us a two-minute warning (OFF-MIKE)

GIBBS: Oh, OK. Well, I — my apologies.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

GIBBS: I was in talking with the president, so I apologize for the inconvenience.

It was just, like, last week when Gibbs was delighting one and all with his hilarious joking around and HIS MAGIC PODIUM.

Thank you to Intern Danny Groner for compiling this now poignant video.

Barack Obama's press secretary was supposed to introduce a new era of inclusiveness and feminism maybe because Barack Obama is a liberal and he would end the "old boy's club" atmosphere of Washington. So in order to explain how sexist and anti-woman all of Robert Gibbs' baseball talk is BBC correspondent Katty Kay explains in The Daily Beast that even though she's managed to wrap her silly little female head around complicated things like "politics" she can't handle the occasional off-hand reference to "innings."

I can talk politics with the best of them. I can even make reasonable sense of toxic mortgage assets. Give me Paris, Moscow, or Tokyo and I can usually muster an intelligent observation. But when the talk turns to innings, dunks and touchdowns, sorry, I've nothing remotely sensible to add.

To be fair, sports metaphors in politics are really stupid, Robert Gibbs is clearly kind of a dick, and there is a pervasive chauvinism in the beltway press (it goes hand-in-hand with the blinkered elitism and self-importance). But come on, Katty, you really don't have any clue what Gibbs is saying here?

"Bottom of the fifth [inning], the sausage race is [at] the beginning of the next inning, so stay tuned, and the starting pitcher is in there, still throwing nice curveballs and [he's] still got a lot of heat on the fastball," was how the new White House press secretary described the progress of the economic stimulus bill at a recent briefing....

Slow down, Robert! There are girls here! In order to demonstrate how not-sexist this administration is you'd better reframe the issue in terms of shopping for shoes! (Or, as Katty says, "It's as if Dana Perino had compared getting out of Iraq to extracting yourself from pigeon pose, or tracking Osama to finding vintage Pucci on eBay." Because Dana Perino is a girl, see, and those are things girls know about. Also for fuckssake we'd still be able to follow those metaphors, even though we're boys. Because they're stupidly easy to comprehend even if you have a penis.)

The real problem is that author Katty Kay is British. If Robert Gibbs used cricket metaphors she'd be fine! Or maybe he should just have the lady members of the press corps chase him around the briefing room at high speed while a zany sax theme plays? That's the sort of stuff you Brits get, right?

But I mean, you know, I think David talked to you about where the public is on this and I think it's illuminating because it may not necessarily be where cable television is on all of this. But, you know, we're sort of used to that. We lost on cable television virtually every day last year. So, you know, there's a conventional wisdom to what's going on in America via Washington, and there's the reality of what's happening in America.

Hah. That's almost true! Sure, everyone loves Obama sooo much and Chris Matthews weeps with joy when he thinks about him, but on a day-to-day basis, the entire campaign, from the primaries up until, say, the financial crisis, was a series of brilliant maneuvers by wiley veterans Hillary Clinton and John McCain that would finally kneecap that untested pretty boy.

Of course the Obama campaign's longterm game plan doesn't really translate to an effective press management system for a president. So Robert Gibbs is now running an uncooperative press office and Obama is once again "losing" every day, on cable.

But the sole job of the White House Press Secretary is actually just to be a punching bag for grandstanding pricks. Senior White House correspondents' job is to get really kickass questions on the air on your evening news.

So on that front, Gibbs is doing fine. Because good journalism is about asking "tough questions" of official spokespeople, especially questions that you know you won't get an answer to, and then you get to host Meet the Press because you're so good at formulating really tough questions, and that is how you know that our press is working just fine, thank you.

(Of course in the press' defense, Gibbs went on to say "we'll get to measure whose questions were better over the course of the day — the voters of Elkhart or the reporters of Washington." And, honestly, those questions from the voters were not actually very good.)

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs has also gone on, at length, about Obama's "package." All this dirty talk could really stimulate America! Air America radio hostess (and Wonkette emerita) Ana Marie Cox got hot and bothered watching Orszag, better known for his dry policy papers on Social Security, talk about the government's anti-recession spending plans on MSNBC. On this, there is bipartisan agreement: Even Obama's campaign opponent, Senator John McCain, says that "America needs the package."

Cillizza covered Capitol Hill for Roll Call, and has freelanced for the Atlantic Monthly and Slate. It's not like he's some random internet spaz off the street.

Maybe the "Fix" blogger had too much coffee. More likely, his bosses at WashingtonPost.com, now in the process of being integrated into the newsroom, asked him to write something that would sound at home and "native" on Twitter. You know: chatty, personal and utterly without redeeming value.

Eric Spiegelman summarized Cillizza's work "for those who prefer to keep their brain cells intact: the reporter is hungry, he offers up fashion tips, and he thinks China is totally hott."

More highlights below.

Sometimes, newspapers let their hair down and it works. It's a wonderful thing. Witness the videos made for the New York Times by writer David Pogue on computer topics, or by David Carr on the Oscars. Or dating columnist Carolyn Hax's live chats for WaPo.

And far be it from us to criticize some well-placed snark.

But this is the White House press briefing. For God's sake, pay some respect to the context. There's no need to offer the American public further proof that the Washington press corps cares more about being chummy and trivial with the powers-that-be than about asking tough questions. Likewise, there's no reason to offer your readers such a clear indication your paper is having a severe identity crisis.

Besides this whole obliterating-the-last-vestiges-of-WaPos-dignity thing is totally Dana Milbank's turf, BACK OFF Cillizza, if you know what's good for you and your rumbling tummy.