Don't people like Dana Milbank at the WashPost realize they're simply producing self-parody? Don't Beltway media insiders read the polling data and realize that the media's relentless theater criticism-as-analysis shtick in recent weeks has fallen on deaf ears and that it appears Americans couldn't care less about how much (or how little) emotion Obama shows. (Where's the evidence that Americans want their presidents to be yellers and screamers?) Plus, it doesn't seem to matter to voters how often writers like Milbank comically obsess over the non-issue, it remains a non-starter.
Nonetheless, behold the wonder from today's WashPost and Milbank's substance-free column [emphasis added]:
The president, nibbling around the edges, said nothing about McChrystal until remarking in the evening that the general had shown “poor judgment.” Gibbs, in the briefing room, was similarly slow to bare his teeth when asked for Obama's reaction. “Well, suffice to say, our combatant commander does not usually participate in these meetings from Washington,” he said of Wednesday's session in the Situation Room.
But it didn't suffice to say that, and reporters tried to provoke Gibbs, sniffling and sipping tea from a paper cup, to unload on McChrystal: “How can the president keep someone in his job who offers that level of insubordination? . . . Does the president at all feel betrayed?”
The Wall Street Journal's Jonathan Weisman, pointing out that McChrystal had already been in trouble (for disagreeing publicly with Biden), asked: “How many times can this man be taken to the woodshed?”
Gibbs followed the familiar route of expressing the president's anger. “I gave him the article last night, and he was angry,” he announced.
“How so?” asked CBS's Chip Reid.
“Angry. You would know it if you saw it,” Gibbs said.
Reporters pressed: “Did he pound the table? Did he curse? Can you elaborate?”
“No,” Gibbs said. “I'm not going to elaborate.”
Good answer. It's time for Obama and his aides to stop talking about his anger, and start acting on it.
Like I said, it's complete self-parody at this point.