Headline at Fox News:
"Obama to Appear in Rare Press Conference"

The Fox schedule says that Barack Obama will "confront the White House press corps (corpse) in a full-blown news conference" today, for the first time in 308 days. I can't find a time for this thing yet. You would think, knowing the way this guy likes to hear himself talk, that he would be having these things all the time. Before the election, he mused that he might hold "once a month" press conferences. It's turned out so far to be closer to once a year. What he's done in the past is to take a question and then pontificate at length--like 20 minutes--so that in a 45-minute press conference, he might get in three or four questions. I wouldn't expect today to be any different. He doesn't seem to be able to stop himself from "answering long."

In an opinion piece, the Washington Post says Obama must do "four things" today at his press conference:

1. He should expound a little bit on his "Plug the damn hole" remark over the inability to stop the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico (oh--that's "Ocean" of Mexico, according to Janet Napolitano).

2. He should "try his best" to show that sending 1,200 National Guard troops to the border is being done for a better reason than just to get "cranky Sen John McCain" to shut up.

3. He needs to clear the air about the Joe Sestak affair. Which will become the Obama Watergate affair if he doesn't.

4. (And I'll quote this one, since it's only a little bit bizarre)--"And he needs to exercise rhetorical presidential muscle to tamp down the uprising among service section chiefs over 'don't ask, don't tell.'"

Well, good luck with all of that. Although I would add that mainly he needs to watch himself and not speak "stupidly" like he did in his last (July 2009) press conference. Even better luck with that one, Champ.

Update. I had heard that this was going to be a regular press conference. That's what I heard a couple of days ago. I can't find anything about this on Drudge. So I went over to HuffPo, and the headline there reads, "Obama Oil Spill Speech: President to Take Questions, Cite Report, on Gulf Oil Spill." So has this "press conference" now morphed into something entirely different?? It would seem so.

I finally found a time for this thing (not exactly prime time, but that's OK since it's coming from the Not-Yet-Ready-for-Prime-Time-President). This is according to the Fox New White House Blog: 12:45 Eastern time, "President Obama delivers remarks and takes questions from the press in the White House East Room."

Update #2: There were some "golden moments" at this presser. HotAir has them. Just look for clips with that gold drapery background. Ick. Those gold drapes remind me of something you would see in King Hassad's palace. You can't argue taste, I guess. He took eight questions. Six of them were about the oil spill. Hey, journalists, someone want to ask the guy about North Korea? Mr. Obama looked pretty bad today--the eyes. He's also dying his hair again.

Update #3. Here's the Open Thread for comments about the presser on Hot Air.

Update #4. Michelle Malkin has an excellent analysis of Obama's presser: "Obama sleeps while oil spills."