Obama Administration Transparency.

This video was recorded on May 3, 2010. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs is asked a simple question- "In view of President Franklin Roosevelt's 998 press conferences, why has President Obama not held a single press conference since last July?". To spare you on the math, that's about 10 months ago. To spare you on the thinking, that's an absurdly long period of time for a President to go without a press conference- even more so for a President who promised transparency and openness.

The genius Mr. Gibbs responds to this question by throwing out a Red Herring by saying, "When the President took 8 questions from members of the White House Press Board... what would you call that?". Well, he wasn't asking me but I'd call that 8 staged questions from a very few members of the press regarding a very specific subject. However, that's not the important question. The important question is to ask why he only has one (very poor) example of a press conference in a time span of  TEN MONTHS.

This is classic Democrat strategy. Ignore the important, meaningful question and divert the conversation toward a specific, tedious, meaningless topic instead. He continues to argue the point that this "press conference" example utterly destroys the question asked by the honorable Lester Kinsolving. It doesn't. Mr Kinsolving recognizes the weakness of Mr. Gibbs' argument but out of a sense of fair play, answers the question. This is a mistake. He should have dismissed Mr. Gibbs' question and stuck to his original question and insisted on a legitimate answer to his original question.

Mr. Gibbs continues on his diversionary tactic and then asks Mr. Kinsolving how the aforementioned 8 questions would have or could have qualified as a "press conference". Again- irrelevant. Furthermore, it's not Mr. Kinsolving's job or responsibility to help Mr. Gibbs or President Obama meet the minimum requirement for a press conference. The important detail here is that President Obama HAS NOT HELD A PRESS CONFERENCE IN TEN MONTHS.

I'm not sure what the name for this maneuver is, but Democrats and Liberals have become famous for this tactic. At 1:39, Mr. Gibbs says "I hope that you did not dodge my second question". I find this to be hysterical and don't understand why more people don't shut this statement down immediately. I understand that you might get caught in the heat of the debate and overlook it but doing so allows the whole conversation to be sidetracked.

With 20/20 hindsight, it's obvious that Mr. Gibbs has spent the first 1:39 mins of the video dodging Mr. Kinsolving's question. It's not audacious to accuse Mr. Kinsolving of dodging a question except that answering a question with a question is the sartorial example of dodging a question. It's as if Mr. Gibbs is so focused on the reality inside his own head that he has no idea in the world that anyone outside of it can see what he's saying and doing.

Rather than ever answering the question, Mr. Gibbs continues with the debate. At 2:16 he asks Mr. Kinsolving if he applied for credentials to the event. Mr. Kinsolving responds that he didn't because he was fairly certain that he wouldn't have gotten them if he had applied for them- "I would have been delighted to if I thought I had any chance...". Mr. Gibbs then throws up a Straw Man fallacy and says, "so you were offered the opportunity but declined to do so". No. That's not what he said and it's not what happened but please, continue.

Before Mr. Kinsolving has a chance to respond, Mr. Gibbs cuts him off and continues with the fallacy that the venue was much bigger than the current one therefore it's ridiculous that Mr. Kinsolving would think that his application for credentials would have been denied. If we gave Mr. Gibbs the benefit of the doubt while simultaneously insulting his intelligence, we could assume that Mr. Gibbs was unaware that the point Mr. Kinsolving was making. What Mr. Kinsolving implied is that the Obama Administration has a history of actively excluding members of the Press who might likely not cast them in a favorable light. FOX News is just one such example of the members of the Press who have been excluded in the past.

At this point (2:42 into the video), Mr. Gibbs begins to grow weary and disrobes any indication of civil debate and becomes sarcastic as he asks, "So what? Can you give me a number? Was it a number thing? If it wasn't 8 [questions] was it maybe nine?" Then they start yet another Red Herring debate wherein Mr. Kinsolving states that 38 questions were asked at President Kennedy's first press conference.

This is where Mr. Gibbs goes in for "the kill" and very sharply states, "So it's not 55, it's not 8, it's thirty-eight... no- I'm just trying to get an answer to my second question." This is a full 3:15 mins into the video and Mr. Gibbs has still not answered the important question asked by Mr. Kinsolving.

A full four minutes into this video Mr. Gibbs is still arguing about the definition of of a "press conference" yet never answers the original question of "Why has President Obama not held a single press conference since last July?" The Democrats would call this a successful use of time. This is one of the many differences between the Democrats and the Republicans.