Story of the day....and what did we learn?

Last night was President Obama's first press conference since February 10th, when the economy was still is "burning flames" mode. Since then a whole ton of shit has happened - the AIG bonus debacle, the budget proposal, the Geithner spectacle, and the up and down of the stock market that has people pretending like it's supposed to make any sense. And true to form, after a very clear yet a little didactic "I got this" speech, a good portion of the reporting pool proceeded to play this week's edition of "Media games!".

In "Media Games!", each Beltway hack tries his best to not really report news, but to become part of the news themselves. Chuck Todd from NBC tries to prove himself amongst the cool kids by being a total tool, asking the president whether Americans have suffered enough since times are tough. Fuck you, dickweed. Maybe if you're out of work, or your 401K has gone to shit, or you're forced to take a second job to get health insurance, maybe that is a sacrifice. Think about that when you're at your next cocktail party. Chip "talking point" Reid rehashed the false GOP lines about the budget being completely irresponsible and that he's hurting our children. The camera must have cut away when the nurse came to change his diaper when Obama dismissed his confrontational non-question just with #1) my plan is long-ranging, the budget is only one component, look at everything else, and #2) ballsac, did you happen to forget the trillion dollar deficit we inherited from Bush, to whom you couldn't care less to ask anything?



But the cherry on the sundae was CNN's Ed "Doughface" Henry, who is so totally in love with himself over his last performance in February (the left-field question about showing the fallen troops returning home in the media), that he is convinced that the purpose for being there is for himself to be the story. First off, the fallen-soldier thing was a red-herring question to begin with. You weren't concerned with the actual ramifications of the situation, but rather to cause Obama to possibly go back on a pledge or stumble through something that would cause a right-wing furor. Fuck you for that.

This time he tries to channel the actual populist outrage over the AIG bonuses as some sort of "gotcha" moment. But rather than trying to ask a valid question about Americans' perception of Wall Street's delusions of entitlement affecting their faith in the financial plan, he goes with the "why did it take you so long to say you're mad about it" bullshit. In which case Obama did give Henry his wish, providing the most memorable line of the night, with...

Obama: Look it took us a couple of days because I like to know what I'm talking about before I speak. Alright?

Ooh, snap.

So Henry went and wrote a complete whinefest about how being a reporter is like an athlete, except you can be puffy and pasty like him. I don't know what's worse, his namedropping like a 14-year-old girl (the "Wolf Blitzer/Gridiron Dinner" double play), or his sports analogies (the quarterbacking bullshit), or the "war wounds" fantasy ("So he did slap me down a bit", the fellow DC bubbles calling to nudge or congratulate him). Here's his take on his moment in the sun...

The pressure was on now because the president had called on me. Someone handed me a microphone, millions were watching, and it's scary to think about changing topic in a split second because you might get flustered and screw up.

But it's fun to gamble and like any good quarterback (though I was never athletic enough to actually play the position), I decided to call an audible.

So I went hard on the AIG question, and took Wolf's advice and followed on a couple of colleagues who got pushback from the president when they asked about how his budget numbers do not seem to add up.

Now, does this sound like someone who goes out and researches a story and uses this unique moment to interact with the president about an important issue, or a game where only one person wants to play?

Well at least I'm not the only one that feels that way. Wonkette totally tears pasty-boy to shreds. Read their take (click here).

and for extra credit - Bobblespeak has the funniest "Twitteresque" sum-up of the conference. Read to get the jist (and a laugh) [Click here]