Did Obama Diss Fox's Major Garrett at His News Conference?
By Paul Bedard, Washington Whispers
He got called on at Tuesday's prime-time press conference, so President Obama probably doesn't hate Fox News Channel's Major Garrett. But the president does have a major—lowercase—tic when it comes to Garrett's name. When reading from a cheat sheet Tuesday, he called out "Major Garrett," but that was shortened to Garrett when Obama looked at the newsman for a follow-up. Then yesterday, Obama referred to the reporter in a face-to-face event as "Garrett." After Major told him his first name, the prez said choosing Garrett was "a sign of affection." And Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs tells Garrett he was a first with a presidential nickname. Says Major: "I told Gibbs I would take 'Garrett' happily because [White House Chief of Staff] Rahm Emanuel probably has a less friendly one for me."
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Tags: Barack Obama | Fox News | Robert Gibbs
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Reader Comments
Calling People By Last Name
During that NBC special on the Obama White House, he referred to Angela Merkel as only "Merkel". Obviously, she should be at least addressed as "Chancellor Merkel". In other words, he has the crude and rude habit of calling people by their last names. It turned me off to the guy quite a bit for some reason.
Garrett vs. Gibbs
I saw the exchange several times.
I know the KOS and other left-leaning sites are calling this a knockout on the part of Gibbs, but I saw it as a rather disjointed exchange. Gibbs seemed to be answering some other question being asked of him and Garrett didn't effectively pursue the original question, IMO.
Not even close to a knockout for either, but a very interesting question raised by Garrett.
Why does the White House think it is OK to use anyone's email address who sends them email at one point in time? On one occasion I did send an inquiry to them about their position on an issue. Got a polite and very fluffy response...and then the spam started coming.
Never happened after several inquiries sent the the Bush people.
At any rate, I am one of the millions of Americans who regularly receive spam from WhiteHouse.gov. I read the first 20 or 30, thinking there might be something new that could give me a better insight into what the Obama Administration was trying to do. No way. The emails have been the same old drivel we hear in the press releases coming out of 1600 PA.
I never asked for "updates" from the White House and have just unsubscribed from their mailing list.
Let's see who else they've shared my email address with...
Major Garrett
He didn't yell the question and I feel that it was a great question. Our president was very quick to jump in to defend a man who was trying to break his country's constitution in an effort to extend his rule. He hammers Isreal about what actions they must take. Yet, citizens in Iran were being beaten and shot in the streets for protesting and he did not say a word for over a week (other than to say that he didn't want to intrude...) When he finally stepped up to (sort of) defend democracy, I think the question of what took so long is quite relevant.
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