It’s standard practice for the White House to issue short statements to the press about conversations that the president has with other world leaders, in what is typically called a readout.
Not every conversation that the president has with other world leaders is announced to the press, however. So it was interesting Tuesday that the Georgian government virtually guaranteed that their president’s call with President Obama would get a readout by announcing it to the U.S. press before the White House had a chance to.
The Georgian government issued a statement to reporters through The Podesta Group, a lobbying and PR firm run by Tony Podesta, brother to John Podesta, who runs the liberal think tank Center for American Progress, was formerly White House chief of staff to President Clinton and is now a trusted adviser outside the White House to the Obama administration.
A few minutes after four, the statement from Georgia landed in reporters’ inboxes. About 30 minutes later, the White House sent out its own readout of the call.
The Georgian statement said Obama and Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili had a conversation around noon East Coast Time (8 p.m. in Tblisi) that focused heavily on the importance of Georgia’s independence.
“The presidents discussed issues of regional security. President Obama reiterated his strong support for Georgia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the Georgian statement said.
The words “sovereignty” and “territorial integrity” refer to Georgia’s ongoing dispute with Russia, which invaded the former Soviet bloc country in August 2008 and now has some control of two breakaway regions along the country’s northern border with Russia.
The White House statement said that “the president relayed the strong support of the United States for Georgia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
But in typical Obama style the White House also signaled that Saakashvili should use restraint in his words and actions toward the Kremlin, adding that Obama and the Georgian leader “discussed the importance of all sides avoiding provocative actions to build stability in the region.”