After eight months of avoiding the press, yesterday, President Obama held a press conference. And once it had ended, many wished he had waited another eight months.
Glenn described it as “the biggest joke he’d ever heard,” and thanks to one CBS reporter, who Glenn labeled “Giggles McQueen,” it was a pretty accurate description.
“She literally said, ‘I’ve never seen you lose’,” Glenn quipped before playing the audio of the reporters exchange with the president.
REPORTER: Thank you, Mr. President, and congratulations, by the way. One quick followup.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Christie was there when I was running for State Senate.
REPORTER: That’s right. I was.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Christie and I go back a ways.
REPORTER: I’ve never seen you lose. I wasn’t looking that one time.
After some fairly well deserved mocking, Glenn continued to comment on some of the more notable (mind boggling) exchanges that took place during the press conference. Like the question from Chuck Todd, who basically gave the president an out to avoid answering it.
Glenn described it like this:
“Mr. President, when it comes to Benghazi and what happened with Petraeus, are you just going to wait until there’s more information before you make a statement on that?”
“Yes, I am, Chuck. Next question?”
“That was a tough one,” Pat replied sarcastically.
Pat did point out that at least one reporter in the White House Press Corps managed to get out a real question…of course, getting a “real” answer is a completely different ballgame.
Fox News’ Ed Henry put President Obama on the spot on his handling of the terror attacks in Benghazi by asking this:
“Sean Smith’s father Ray said he believes his son basically called 911 for help and they didn’t get it. And I know you’ve said you grieved for these four Americans, that it’s being investigated, but the families have been waiting for more than two months. So I would like to ‑‑ for you to address the families, if you can. On 9/11 as commander‑in‑chief, did you issue any orders to try to protect their lives?”
Here’s the president’s non-response:
“Ed, you know, I’ll address the families not through the press. I’ll address the families directly, as I already have, and we will provide all the information that is available about what happened on that day. That’s what the investigation’s for. But as I said repeatedly, if people don’t think that we did everything we can to make sure that we saved the lives of folks who I sent there and who were carrying out missions on behalf of the United States, then you don’t know how our defense department thinks or our State Department thinks or our CIA thinks. Their number one priority is obviously to protect American lives. That’s what our job is.”
Unfortunately that doesn’t answer Ed’s question. The question was: Did you sign the order? Because, as President of the United States, he had to sign an order.
But, to no one’s surprise, the press did not ask a follow up.
Did he sign the order?
“No,” Glenn told listeners. “The answer is no. Otherwise, he would say yes. It’s an easy question.”
The absurdity didn’t end there. The president actually had the arrogance to go off about the criticisms of Susan Rice, our UN Ambassador — you know, the one who was blaming the attack on a YouTube video on television two weeks after the attack. The president it actually considering appointing her as Secretary of State and simply doesn’t understand the outrage over the idea that she would be Hilary Clinton’s replacement.
Here’s what the President had to say…
“She has represented the United States and our interests in the United Nations with skill and professionalism and toughness and grace. As I said before, she made an appearance at the request of the White House in which she gave her best understanding of the intelligence that had been provided to her. If Senator McCain and Senator Graham and others want to go after somebody, they should go after me.”
Really, Mr. President? There were twelve reports on his desk within six hours of the Benghazi attack — twelve. And not one intelligence community was reporting the attack was over a YouTube video.
“Where did you get the intelligence? Why is he throwing the intelligence under the bus? Because of Petraeus,” Glenn said. “They knew you in advance. They manipulated the situation, held that card in reserve so when they needed to change the topic. This is why for the last year they have been blaming everything on bad intelligence. Everything has been blamed on bad intelligence.”
Pat noted that the president said something very telling at the end of his statement.
“Senator McCain and Senator Graham and others want to go after somebody, they should go after me.”
” I say we take him up on that because ultimately it is his responsibility,” Pat added.
But unfortunately, Glenn points out, they probably won’t.
The only question they have to get the answer to is: Did you sign that order?
There is public knowledge that the president had reports on his desk with enough information to do so, and enough information NOT to blame the attack on a video. So who gave him the bad information? Who told the president that it was a youtube video?
Name the person, fire them and correct the mistake.
“He can’t,” Glenn said, “because he is the mistake.”
