Brody's Scribbles... 'Brief' doesn't cut it with Helen nor The Advocate's Kerry Eleveld

Helen Thomas waiting for the start of the Daily White House Press Briefing

Photo By Brody Levesque

By Brody Levesque (Washington DC) Oct 5 | Journalists are normally bound by the ethics and practises of our profession not to offer up opinions, outside of commentary or editorials, when asking questions or interviewing persons of interest on news topics. This philosophy doesn't seem to apply however, to the octogenarian Dean of the White House Press Corps, Helen Thomas. Of course, no insult implied nor intended, she is at an age where she obviously doesn't care much for etiquette, noting that we've all shared those moments I am sure, with our own grandpere or grandmere saying something that resulted in a genuine 'cringe' moment for us.

Last week came this exchange between Helen and Press Secretary Robert Gibbs dueling over the president's commitment to the public option portion of the health care reform bill. 

She had asked whether or not President Obama had given up on the public option and as Gibbs began to reply Helen interrupted; “I ask it day after day because it has great meaning in this country and you never answer it.”  

Gibbs then joked back with; “Well, I apparently don't answer it to your satisfaction.”

Her  reprimand was quintessential Thomas,“That's right,” which caused merriment and giggles to erupt from behind her from the rest of the press corps.  

She pressed on with, “Well, is he going to fight for it, or not?”
 
Gibbs: “We're going to work to get choice and competition into health care reform.”

“You're not going to get it,” she said bluntly.

“Well, then, why do you keep asking me?” Gibbs queried. 

“Because I want your conscience to bother you,” Thomas said flatly.

Nope, there's no soft shoe dance in answering a question from Helen.

Of course, the other members of the 'wolf pack' as we're occasionally referred to by those officials that have to stand before us and answer our questions, were also frustrated by the press secretary's short answers.

The Advocate's Kerry Eleveld  tried to pin him down on his responses to her questions regarding former President Bill Clinton's interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper in which President Clinton stated that he was in support of Gay marriages and called his former stance on that issue, “untenable.”

Gibbs said, “I did not see President Clinton’s comments and I haven’t talked directly to [President Obama] about it.”

Writing later in her October 4th Advocate.com editorial, Eleveld had this to say:

Quite honestly, I expected that Gibbs might say he hadn’t spoken to the President about the matter. What I didn’t anticipate was that he would suggest he hadn’t seen the comments at all. CNN had teased the interview with Clinton during Anderson Cooper’s show, sent out an advanced copy of it to various outlets, and it was instantly available on the Internet moments after it ran.

While the answer was par for the course this week, it stood in sharp contrast to the last time Gibbs confronted questions related to a minority group that were injected into the national discourse by a former president: Jimmy Carter.

The day after Carter suggested last month that much of the animosity directed at President Obama and his policies was based on the color of his skin, Gibbs repeatedly said the President disagreed with that analysis.

The race discussion was another conversation the White House didn’t want to have during their adventures in health care, but they clearly concluded they couldn’t claim ignorance on Carter’s comments, especially not in the wake of the Rep. Joe Wilson saga. The Press Corps peppered Gibbs with questions on the subject of race for three straight days, and he dutifully restated over and over again that the President rejected the assessment of Carter of others.

Of course, the job of the White House press secretary – or any press secretary for that matter – is to create the illusion that they’ve addressed a subject while telegraphing as little as possible about the deliberations that are really taking place behind the scenes.

And the truth is, a journalist’s appetite for answers is rarely sated. But the difference between the way Gibbs fielded the questions about race versus his handling of the query about same-sex marriage, is that at least he acknowledged the topic of race was being discussed nationally even as he disagreed with the premise of the questions.

As for marriage, one of my communications friends said he couldn’t understand why Gibbs didn’t simply say, “Of course the White House respects President Clinton’s views on same-sex marriage – it’s a topic many Americans have been thinking about and every former President has the right to express their opinion. But President Obama has been very clear and consistent on this matter.”

Another associate channeled Helen Thomas for a blunter assessment, “I just wish someone would tell Gibbs that gay people exist.”To his credit, Gibbs continues to call on The Advocate at the briefings and, every time he does, he knows the general nature of the question he's going to get.