Not necessarily.
Anyone who’s ever suffered through a White House press briefing knows that it’s just kabuki theater. People say things that sound like questions, and somebody replies with things that sound like answers. It mimics reality, without really qualifying as such.
It’s so bad that when somebody does ask an actual question, that’s considered newsworthy:
If you remind Jay Carney that his boss is a bad person, he will get angry and embarrass you. And nobody wants that.
But is it even worse than we thought? Last night, a reporter for KPHO in Phoenix said this on the air:
“And then [Jay Carney] also mentioned that a lot of times, unless it’s something breaking, the questions that the reporters actually ask… are provided to him in advance.”
Whoa! Really? I’m no fan of Carney, most of the WH Press Corps, or the empty fraud they conduct together. But if this were true, wouldn’t we have heard about it by now? Wouldn’t Biden have bragged about it in front of a live microphone? Even the least transparent administration in living memory couldn’t keep something like this under wraps, could they?
I mean… Neil Munro would’ve become famous for embarrassing the White House much earlier, right?
On one hand, Carney denies it:
.@RalstonReports Briefings would be a lot easier if this were true! Rest assured, it is not.
— Jay Carney (EOP) (@PressSec) March 20, 2014
But on the other hand, so does Ed Henry:
story dead wrong RT @danielhalper Reporter: WH Press Secretary Gets Questions from Reporters Before Press Briefing http://t.co/1OUfNTy6RI
— Ed Henry (@edhenryTV) March 20, 2014
Hmmm. They cancel each other out.
Alright, then. By the standard imposed by liberals and the media (PTR), I’m ruling this story False, But Also True Because I Want It to Be True.
Hey, this is easy! You just decide whether something is true or false based on how much you like it, and then you claim impartiality. I can see the appeal of a career in “fact-checking.”
P.S. Rush Limbaugh’s theory: “Ed Henry thinks it’s dead wrong ’cause he’s not in on it. After all, he’s from Fox. Why would he be in on such a scheme?”