The job of the White House Press Secretary is simple: to answer questions from the press* without actually answering them. To form aloud words that are assembled into sentences and then stacked up into paragraphs, giving the appearance of communication, but without communicating. When this job is done well, some listeners might even believe that a few real answers have been given.**
And then there’s Jay Carney.
Here he is, presumably having just given the boilerplate non-answer on Solyndra — it’s really no big deal because hey, come on, there are winners and there are losers and that’s just the way it goes — being asked to explain the difference between that and Bain Capital.
You’re probably not smart enough to follow that, so here it is in black and white.
Reporter: Last thing. If that’s the argument, how is that different from Romney’s argument on Bain Capital, which is that many succeeded and a few failed?
Carney: Look, there, there, there is the… the difference in that… your overall view of what your responsibilities are as president, and what your view of the economic future is. And, and the president believes, as he’s made clear, that a president’s responsibility is not just to, uh… those who win, but those who, for an example, in a company where there have been layoffs or a company that has gone bankrupt, that, you know, we have to make sure that those folks have the means to find other employment, that they have the ability to train for other kinds of work, and that’s part of the overall responsibility the president has.
Okay? Do you understand the difference now? Are we done here?
Well then, you’re just dumb, I guess.
Update: Oh, nice try, wingnut…
Difference between Bain and Solyndra: Romney’s enterprises made investors money. Obama’s lost taxpayer money.
— Melissa Clouthier (@MelissaTweets) May 29, 2012
*Plus Tommy Christopher.
**You can’t fool all of the people all of the time, but fortunately for the president, all of the people aren’t in the White House Press Corps.