Governmedia Kabuki Theater

Pesss-Briefing
Compliments of Stormfax.

Kabuki theater stresses the otherworldly and is highly stylized, so that no one would mistake it for an earnest attempt to reflect what we normally call reality. In this regard, it has heavily influenced White House press briefings. In both cases, the production is not only staged, but so obviously staged as to be creepily surreal:

A CBS reporter from Arizona reveals that President Obama’s press secretary, Jay Carney, receives questions from the press in advance of his daily press briefing. In fact, she says, the reporters often receive the answers in advance of the briefing, too.

Catherine Anaya of KPHO-TV in Phoenix reports:

“[Carney] mentioned that a lot of times, unless it’s something breaking, the questions that the reporters actually ask — the correspondents — they are provided to him in advance. So then he knows what he’s going to be answering and sometimes those correspondents and reporters also have those answers printed in front of them, because of course it helps when they’re producing their reports for later on.”

Why write the reports later on? Since the entire farce has been scripted in advance, wouldn’t it be more efficient to write the report in advance too?

Anaya broke protocol by spilling these beans when the discussion with Carney was off the record; he had no choice but to react to her revelation by denying it.

Also revealed by Anaya:

President Obama and his team have 3 tactics to make sure reporters stick to the 4 minutes the White House has allotted them to interview the leader of the world: a countdown clock, a looming aide, and they have to conduct the interview with the president while standing up.

If any reporters prove uncooperative as regards keeping the lid on Obama’s multiple impeachment-worthy scandals (Benghazi, Fast & Furious, IRS targeting of conservatives, Solyndra and other green money-washing operations, etc.), this may be revised so that reporters need to ask their questions while standing on one foot. Ball bearings will be scattered on the floor as necessary.

Wait, what’s this? Anaya now says it was all a mistake, and she is seeping contrition from every pore. Evidently someone gave her a very stern talking-to.

First one statement was given to describe the supposed mistake, then another after everyone got their story straight. In the first correction, Anaya writes, “I was indeed asked to provide my question in advance.” Another talking-to from the Powers That Be presumably followed. This correction was yanked off her station’s website and replaced by a correction in which she writes, “The White House never asked for my questions in advance.”

Too late, Catherine. Crawl as you may, abase yourself as you might, you’ll be lucky to get assigned to cover an Apache Junction bake sale after this.

Anyone who believes a word from the White House or its Praetorian Guard media at this point is pathologically gullible.

jay-carney
Carney wouldn’t lie; he used to be Washington Bureau Deputy Chief for Time.

On tips from Stormfax and Bodhisattva. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.

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