Obama trades jabs with White House media
Agence France-Presse | 06/24/2009 3:01 PM
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WASHINGTON - Dwelling on tragedy in Iran and poking fun at his "Spock-like" ears, President Barack Obama flashed with impatience and compensating wit in a joust with White House reporters on Tuesday.
Passionate when marveling at the courage of Iranian demonstrators, Obama was dismissive -- "only I am the president" -- when swatting away Republican attacks, and seemed a touch irritated by the more trivial questions.
"I know everybody here is on a 24-hour news cycle. I'm not," he said icily when explaining the measured evolution of his rhetoric on Iran, after firing off his most robust statement yet on the uprising.
When one reporter asked: "What took you so long?" to get tough with Tehran, the normally unruffled Obama seemed irritated, his eyes narrowed, and he replied: "I don't think that's accurate. Track what I've been saying."
Reporters, often accused of swamping Obama with fawning press coverage, tried to interrupt the president or pose follow ups. Obama silenced several when they tried to quarrel with his answers.
Maybe they were encouraged by the bruising conventions of the White House briefing room, where the press conference was held, rather than the more formal surroundings which usually host presidential encounters.
The fourth solo White House news conference of Obama's five-month-old presidency had been scheduled for the White House Rose Garden but was moved inside at short notice due to baking midsummer sun
Before Obama strode to the stage, some reporters and photographers all but came to blows, jostling for a spot around the walls of a room big enough to accommodate about 50 people but crammed with nearly 200.
One White House press spokesman made a space for a reporter from the Huffington Post liberal website -- and it was soon clear why.
Obama called on him in an apparently coordinated attempt to answer a question solicited by the website from someone in Iran.
The president waxed lyrical in evoking the "timeless dignity" of thousands of Iranians marching in silence: "Those who stand up for justice are always on the right side of history."
And he broached the video of a woman bleeding to death after being shot on an Iranian street, which has become an emblem of the protests, just as a man staring down a tank epitomized the Tiananmen Square uprising.
"It's heart-breaking. It's heart-breaking. And I think that anybody who sees it knows that there's something fundamentally unjust about that."
At times, Obama, a talented long-form writer, appeared exasperated with the short-term preoccupations of journalists.
One reporter asked Obama how many cigarettes he smoked a day, referring to the long-running saga of his bid to quit -- a day after he signed a law tightening curbs on cigarette makers.
"I think it's fair... to just say that you just think it's neat to ask me about my smoking, as opposed to it being relevant to my new law.
"But that's fine. I understand. It's a interesting human-interest story," he said with a touch of sarcasm.
But at other times, Obama, breaking into his famous smile, was happy to play along, ribbing a reporter who asked to follow up on a dodged query posed by a colleague: "What are you? The ombudsman for the White House press corps?"
When the same reporter referred to the "Spock-like language" of his health plan, Obama replied: "The reference to Spock -- is that a crack on my ears?"
Later, with the pressure of the press conference out of the way, the president seemed even more relaxed.
He was badgered by Chilean journalists into answering a question during a joint photo-op with Chile's President Michele Bachelet in the Oval Office.
Obama however declined to apologize for a past CIA interventions and alleged coup attempts in Latin America, despite entreaties to do so.
"I'm interested in going forward, not looking backward," he said.
Then, in what may be an unprecedented move, which trampled all over established White House protocol, the president allowed himself to be persuaded to pose with the star-struck Chilean media pack in the Rose Garden.
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