Does the media have no shame? Why would they so easily acquiesce to being treated like children with this ridiculous idea of pre-selecting reporters chosen to ask the King a question? This tactic was around under Bush as well, so it's not purely just sucking up to the cool guy.
Whatever the reason, the American people are worse off for it.
Just imagine if President Transparent pulled such a thing after a 9/11 type attack or something else horrible, ie, he comes out to the podium, reads a statement, then asks 5 hand-picked reporters for questions to which he filibusters his answers for 5 minutes each, essentially saying nothing. Few would accept such a thing. But the press accepts it now like baby food coming in.
They claim to be mad about access, saying media photographers have been banned from far too many events in favor of the propaganda department. Well, if they had a collective set of balls they would team up and hijack the next presidential presser to make a protest statement. Imagine the prez coming out and reading the card calling out the first questioner only to have the entire press corpse begin yelling questions at the same time, ignoring an agitated Carney as he stands there like a school marm pointing his finger!
What would happen? Would the Big Guy get mad and storm out? That would look bad. Would he try to demand they stay on the protocol and refuse to answer? That would look opaque. Would he begin demeaning the press? That would appear arrogant and insolent. Or would he become frustrated but eventually start answering the questions one by one like a regular public servant at a regular press conference? Why not try it and find out?
But they won't, of course. They are too afraid of being called rude. Or racist. Or losing their book deal or cocktail party status in "This Town". So, the result is the White House admitting that the toughest interview they faced in 2012 was from a comedian. They also had some tough ones from local TV reporters with nothing to lose, but nothing hard from the so-called pros. And as a result, the American people did not get straight answers.
Even Bill O'Reilly was relatively tepid in his scheduled Super Bowl interview but he did manage to get the president to say that not a "smidgen" of corruption occurred in the IRS targeting scandal, which at the time was an ongoing FBI investigation--which they routinely never comment on. So it boggles the mind as to why the White House reporters wouldn't pursue an even tougher strategy in pursuit of straight answers. Certainly ALL of them can't be partisan hacks. Right?
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