Let's cut the President a little slack today and focus on another source of problems for the administration: Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. I just ran across this piece in Politico about today's press conference. Gibbs was tossed a softball question about that clown Andy Harris - you remember him, the newly elected GOP rep (and physician no less) - who famously whined that his governement sponsored healthcare wasn't kicking in soon enough... after winning office by campaigning against government sponsored healthcare.
First, note the headline: "Gibbs: Harris's Anger Is a 'Dilemma.'"
Not "Gibbs: Harris is a Hypocritical Moron Out of Touch with the Realities of Modern Healthcare."
Not "Gibbs: Be Scared, Be Very Scared if These Are the People Now in Charge of Congress."
I mean where did Gibbs receive his media training? For those of you who don't know, media training is instruction received by virtually any person who will have any contact with the press. Media training teaches you how to give succinct sound bites that capture the essence of your message - and absolutely nothing more. It also teaches you how not to answer a question, either by avoiding it or answering only the question you want to answer. This is something that has been a prerequisite for all GOP candidates for any office - from dog catcher to President of the US - since the early days of Newt Gingrich. This explains the GOP's iron clad message discipline. By now it's second nature to all of them.
For the GOP'ers it's a mandatory course; for our side, it's an elective, witness our fearless press secretary:
"I think it's probably a pretty good demonstration of the fact that the rhetoric of what people say ... and the reality of how something like that impacts their lives is apparently quite different, just in this example alone," Gibbs told reporters on Monday. "I think he's going to have to reconcile with himself the notion of health care that's subsidized by his — subsidized by the American people, and his statements surrounding that. I think it presents a particularly interesting dilemma for those that have castigated that in the past."
Harris complained about having to wait 28 days for his health insurance to kick in as a congressman. As the rest of the world knows, a 28 day wait is pretty short. Many, if not most, health plans have a 60 or 90 day wait. This hypocritical moron didn't have the basic knowledge of this world (because after all, he's only a DOCTOR) to know that 28 days is a darn good deal.
So this sets up a softball that anyone with a bare minimum of political messaging savvy could hit out of the park, dominating the news cycle favorably for our side for the next 24 hours. It's not pretty, but we all know that that's how the game is played these days. And Robert Gibbs is the person in this administration with the greatest responsibility for getting that favorable message out every day. Shouldn't be too hard, should it? I beg anyone reading this to find a coherent answer, let alone a useful sound bite in the above quote.
So then, the reporter asks him if he thinks Dr. Harris is a hypocrite. The Answer:
Asked if he thought Harris's comments were hypocritical, Gibbs replied: "I would agree with you. I think you think it is."
Huh? How about "Yes, he's a hypocrite." Or, if you don't want to appear too nasty: "Yes, his comments are hypocritical." Or, "Yes." Instead, he says "I think you think he is." Don't put the onus on the questioner. Take ownership of your answer, Mr. Gibbs.
Now maybe Gibbs didn't have enough time to prepare a trenchant response on this issue. After all, Harris made his comments, when, a week ago? Maybe the hypocrisy question, which has been bouncing around the blogosphere non-stop since then, caught him by surprise.
Or maybe he is really, really poor at doing his job. Maybe, he should have been the first guy out the door in this administration, rather than the last. Maybe he is a big reason (but by no means the only reason) why this administration is completely rudderless and incapoable of communicating with the American people.