Obama tops Bush

[thundley4]

Obama tops Bush at ducking reporters
No formal press conference in 215 days

President Obama, who pledged to establish the most open and transparent administration in history, on Monday surpasses his predecessor's record for avoiding a full-fledged question-and-answer session with White House reporters in a formal press conference.

President George W. Bush's longest stretch between prime-time, nationally televised press conferences was 214 days, from April 4 to Nov. 4, 2004. Mr. Obama tops that record on Monday, going 215 days - stretching back to July 22, according to records kept by CBS Radio's veteran reporter Mark Knoller.

The president has seemingly shunned formal, prime-time sessions since his last disastrous presser, when he said police in Cambridge, Mass., "acted stupidly" by arresting a Harvard professor who broke into a home that turned out to be his own. The off-the-cuff comment took over the news cycle for a week, overshadowing his push for health care reform, and culminated in a White House "Beer Summit," where the president hosted white police officer James Crowley and the black Harvard professor, Henry Louis Gates Jr.

"He does seem a little snakebit on the whole presser thing," said Julie Mason, a longtime White House reporter and board member of the White House Correspondents' Association.

"At his last big press conference in July, he lost control of the message with his response to the Gates question, and then returns six months later with an unannounced, five-question avail in the briefing room - on a snow day. Was it something we said?"

Washington Times


Press conferences don't allow much use for TOTUS to control the direction of events. 

[MrsSmith]

He's far too afraid of the opinion of others to take a chance on misspeaking as Bush did and Biden does.  In point, that's why Biden is VP...comic relief and a way for Obama to duck the risk.  He's all about "making history," not about doing the best for his country and his people.  Why else the frenzy to pass a healthcare bill that no one wants?  It isn't about taking care of people...it's about his spot in the history books.  I don't doubt that he has part of it written in his head already...