This was a good press conference. I thought the questions were tough and fair. I'd give the President a B- or C+ for his presentation. (I'm sorry, I know the man is saying trust us, we're doing everything in our power, acknowledging that there are and will be screw ups...but as long as the oil is coming onshore, you're always going to wonder...which the President acknowledged too.)
Let me take a moment to crack on Randi Rhodes, who spent a good chunk of his air time today complaining that the President didn't address the issue of mobile health clinics for workers who are getting sick. Apparently, a Congressman wrote him him a letter detailing the request. Still he didn't speak of it.
Let me get this straight Randi, you're complaining that the President didn't answer a question he wasn't asked.
Okay.
The only wastes of time in the whole preceding was Helen Thomas' question about Afghanistan toward the middle, and Major Garrett's (Fox Noise) sub-question about Joe Sestak toward the end. Since I just got finished reading a passage in The Promise about the President's war with Fox Noise, I had to wonder if shutting them out wasn't the best policy.
But Helen Thomas demanding to know, with a note of rage in her voice, why we were in Afghanistan, to me, bordered on pathetic. (Part of it was the nature of her question, most of it was time and place.)
P.S. Greg Sargent of the Washington Post wrote on his blog that he hoped that the Press Corps would ask him about pushing on the Energy Bill currently stalled in the Senate because Lindsay Graham is throwing a hissy-fit.
I wrote Greg and bet him five bucks that the question would be asked...
Turns out...I think I owe Greg Sargent five bucks. Because while the President answered the questions, several times in fact, about the Energy Bill...no one in the Press Corps asked the question to begin with.
