Folks, I have been feeling under the weather for the past couple of days. I turned on the President's press conference and found myself feeling better after he smacked down -- head pundit in charge Ed Henry of CNN.
In Chicago, we would say that Ed Henry got TOLD...
This was a thing of beauty. I know that this has already been diaried but I wanted to give it a bit of a twist. On Jack and Jill Politics, B-Serious writes a terrific post about the whole affair.
For those of you who missed President Obama tonight, this is the quote of the entire press conference. As a matter of fact, this quote best symbolizes the difference between President Obama and, not only his Republican opponent from the 2008 Election, but even his Democratic opponent from the 2008 Primaries . . .
"I like to know what I’m talking about before I speak."
More from B-Serious:
But some of his critics still don’t get it. They call him a celebrity. They mock his popularity. They imply that he’s uppity. . . say he’s doing too much . . . call him an elitist. They do all of this as if the President is some clown or court jester sent to entertain the American people for the next four to eight years. It’s how we’ve been trained to think. Media culture has programmed us to view our political discourse as nothing more than a game of the dozens. It’s hyperbole, exaggeration and insult disguised as civic engagement.
But it doesn’t work with President Obama. His critics still don’t get it . . .
See . . .He’s not trying to impress you. You’re just impressed by him. No, he’s not trying to talk down to you. It’s just that you can’t help but find yourself listening to him. More than any president in my lifetime, it’s this president who invites a national dialogue by the way he carries himself.
B-Serious's entire post is worth a read: http://www.jackandjillpolitics.com/...
However it was the comments about that post that really caught my attention tonight. Here are some of the highlights.
The POTUS went straight Nino Brown on his ass: "Sit your five dollar ass down before I make change".
Oh that was a thing of beauty! I love this man, I really do. That Ed Henry, is what happens when you talk to a grown ass black man like he's some kind of punk. Oh and never bring up his kids to make a point again either. You never imply that a devoted family man isn't concerned for his own children's future. Notice how everyone else behaved after that.
And another thing, didn't you guys just love the way he rolled into the room. There is nothing like a confident brother's swagger when he walks. These mofos just ain't ready for Anne Duhnam's son and Michelle Obama's husband!
I agree 100% with this commenter in that Ed Henry's mistake was to bring the POTUS's girls into the question. What the heck was he thinking? I wish that the President would have said: "Talk to the Hand."
Commenter Iceberg Slim points out CNN's attempt to spin the entire episode after the fact. It was a truly low rent moment for an already pathetic cable operation.
He made Ed Henry look like a punk journalist and put the rest of the press core on notice. He can be charming but as my mother said, "He can be full of hell." We saw that in the exchange with Henry. The laughable thing is CNN attempting to spin this but it was WEAK AS WATER. Henry just got played tonight and if he don't know the strings on the instrument he should not try to play it!!
Commenter Town opens up another can of whoop ass on CNN:
CNN is doing everything they can to shift the attention from the fact their reporter got bitch slapped on national television by the president. They can spin the story however they like, but the ENTIRE NATION saw Ed Henry get shanked by the president. Don't tell us what we saw, CNN. We saw what we saw. And thanks to YouTube we can see it again and again and again...
Tom Shales of the Washington Post sees through the B.S. too:
He was even a bit snippy -- though justifiably so, it appeared -- when goaded by a CNN reporter to explain why he didn't act more swiftly in condemning executives at AIG who, to the country's great indignation, received cushy bonuses after its leaders drove the company into an iceberg.
Why did it take a couple of days, reporter Ed Henry wanted to know. "It took a couple of days because I like to know what I am talking about before I speak." Whack! It was a little like an old-fashioned teacher rapping a naughty student's knuckles with a ruler.
That would seem to have been a crowd-pleasing moment, the crowd being however many millions were watching the broadcast and cable networks that carried the news conference live. We like our Obama tough even though we also like, and probably prefer, our Obama gentle.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
Loving it... This clip needs to go viral.