The following is an excerpt from OpinionJournal.com’s “Best of the Web” written by the editor, James Taranto.
Out on a Limb
“Libya Regime Accuses Nato of Siding With Rebels”–headline, Guardian (London), April 19
So Make Sure Your Surgeon Is Still Drunk
“Hungover Surgeons Make More Mistakes, Study Finds”–headline, FoxNews.com, April 20
The Peevish President
“The White House has launched a concerted effort to leap over national media and reach out to local journalists in hopes of receiving more favorable coverage,” Yahoo! News reports. Because the national press corps is so tough on the president, you know.
But the effort seems to have backfired this week, when Obama gave an interview to Dallas’s WFAA-TV. Brad Watson’s interview with the president got a bit contentious. “Texas has always been a pretty Republican state, for historic reasons,” Obama said, inaccurately. (Texas was more Democratic than the nation as a whole until around 1980.)
“We lost by a few percentage points in Texas,” Obama claimed. Watson responded with “a gentle reminder that the figure was closer to 10%” (actually almost 12%). Obama’s reply: “If what you’re telling me is Texas is a conservative state, you’re absolutely right.” Then Obama “hinted at hypocrisy by the Texas governor”:
“Gov. [Rick] Perry helped balance his budget with about $6 billion worth of federal help–which he happily took–and then started blaming the members of Congress who had offered that help,” Obama said.
The best part came right after the interview, when Obama, his mic still on, muttered: “Let me finish my answers the next time we do an interview, all right?”
“Obama’s prickly response to Watson’s questioning not only made the local news, but it suddenly became the national news as well,” notes Politico.
“Whatever one thinks of his policies,” USA Today’s Robert Bianco wrote in 2009, “no one can accuse Obama of lacking gravity or dignity. He doesn’t need any particularly [sic] setting to bestow those qualities on him; he carries them with him.” Not always.
For more “Best of the Web” click here and look for thef “Best of the Web Today” link in the middle column below “Today’s Columnists.”
