We have all seen White House Press Secretary Jay Carney belittle any and every reporter who chooses to question the motives or actions of the Obama Administration, and yesterday was no different.
When Fox News reporter James Rosen asked Carney about the current congressional investigation into the September 11, 2012 Benghazi terror attack, Carney dismissed the findings, which indicate U.S. military posturing around the world was ‘poor’ on the 11th anniversary of 9/11, as a partisan attack on behalf of Republicans. Carney added Republicans have been politicizing the attack since it occurred.
CARNEY: The core statement is a reflection of an assessment made by Republicans who have, as you know attempted unfortunately to make this a partisan issue. And I would simply say when it comes to -- and I know that we're creating an exchange here for Fox, and I'm mindful of that. But allow me to suggest the questions about the posturing of defense forces are usually better addressed at the Pentagon.
ROSEN: My question to you, Jay, is first of all, what we're engaged in here is not for Fox. It's for the record. And the fact that the posturing was such that it made remedy or rescue in that situation impossible is not a conclusion solely of the house armed services committee or of Republicans. It's a self-evident fact. So all I'm trying to ask you is with respect to these meetings that the President had with key national security principals the day before those attacks, how is it possible that you can maintain that adequate steps were taken vis-a-vis force posture by the commander-in-chief and his aides when, in fact, the posture is now universally acknowledged to have been such that it made remedy or rescue impossible?
CARNEY: Again, James, I think I said very clearly that there was not adequate security --
“I can't take it,” Glenn said. “All I wanted you to hear was Jay Carney, again, isolating the person who asks in the room any tough question.”
In his dismissal of Rosen, Carney employs a tactic straight out of the Rules for Radicals playbook: Isolate.
“And he's done it before. Just last week didn't he say, you know, ‘Asking a question like that really, really brings into question your intelligence,’” Glenn explained. “But he never said that to the guy who was like, you know the 8-year-old question about Mommy. Who was that guy from Mediaite? Tommy Christopher. He never said, ‘You know, asking a question like that really brings into question your intelligence.’ Which, it does.”
Glenn is referring to the questions posed by Mediaite’s Tommy Christopher on Tuesday, in which Christopher asked Carney if there was a chance President Obama would be willing to delay Obamacare for a year if Republicans were to agree to delay heart attacks for a year?
Carney gave this horrendous question a legitimate response, but Rosen’s question, which relates to the death of four Americans, is dismissed.
“But asking a question on Benghazi, he immediately had to use Rules For Radicals,” Glenn said. “[He had to] go in and isolate and humiliate and say, ‘I question your intelligence, and any smart person here will do exactly the same.’ That's what Rules For Radicals really is.”
Front page image courtesy of the AP