Bob Gibbs in Hysteria Mode Again
(a "dog bites man" story)

Watching Gibbs melt down (whiney, sarcastic, egotistical, moody--and that's on a "good" day) at these White House "press briefings" (and I use the term as loosely as possible) is becoming an almost everyday thing. The Fox reporter, Wendell Goler, is a consummate professional. I can't believe the shit sandwich that Gibbs is serving up to him here. I would love someone who knows about body language to comment on all of Gibbs's nervous hand gestures during his rant about Fox News to Goler. Where does Gibbs think he gets the right to sarcastically refer to Wendell Goler as "my friend"?

This is as unprofessional as anything I've heard coming from someone with the title, White House Press Secretary. Gibbs says to Goler, who had absolutely nothing to do, by the way, with the Fox interview that Gibbs is whining about: "I've got to tell you, I'm not entirely sure that a factual answer that I might give to any one of your questions is gonna change the notion that your network put out the former FEMA director to make an accusation that, uh, the well had been purposefully set off, uh, in order to, uh, change, uh, an offshore drilling decision." Which is a TOTAL mischaracterization of what Michael Brown said in the interview--but why stick to facts, Gibbsy, let's just keep with the public emotional breakdown you and your White House are having over Fox News.

Wendell Goler, maybe the only adult in the room at the time, replied to Gibbs, "Nor would that affect the reporting I do."

Gibbs: "I, I, I, I didn't intimate that it did. Again, you and Major [Major Garrett, the other Fox News White House correspondent], should, uh, [more weird, anxious hand gestures--this guy is simply bizarre] . . . "

Goler: "If we can, let's move on from it."

Gibbs: "You can get on a conference call and maybe do some work. Go ahead."




This is what Michael Brown said in an interview with Neil Cavuto on Fox News: "And I would not be surprised if the White House said, you know, we might be able to, guess what, do what? Use this crisis to our advantage. Let this crisis get really bad, and then we will step in. We will be able to shut down offshore drilling. We will be able to turn all these alternate fuels."

It was Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel himself who famously said, "Never let a good crisis go to waste."



I don't see how Brown's comments are so completely off the mark, as the AP factchecking story about the White House's response to the spill indicates--it's not as if the White House, as they would now like to claim, was Johnny-on-the-spot in this oil spill crisis.

Tony Snow, we miss you.