Obama Gets Real Testy-Like During Tough Questioning

Look how thinned skinned we can be.

President Obama got some tough questions from a local Texas TV reporter, and he didn’t seem to like it. Questions like, “Why are you so unpopular in Texas?” Take a look-see.

These are the type of direct, reality-based questions that local reporters and private citizens sometimes ask but that Washington reporters, observing unwritten rules of Beltway etiquette, fail to deliver. In order to observe some code of politeness – and sometimes because of the political sympathies of the reporters asking the questions – Washington reporters often dance around facts.

On the other hand, the upside for the White House is that regional reporters and private citizens are often intimidated by the White House and the presidency and pitch softballs the president’s way.

That’s why Obama has been inviting local reporters into the White House for interviews. It’s part of the president’s effort to save money and time by campaigning from the White House to reach audiences directly in places that, oh, just happen to be within presidential battleground states.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney Monday denied that the Obama campaign is choosing the locales of the reporters who get to interview Obama – saying the White House is calling the shots. Of course, this ignores that the campaign, in the person of Senior Adviser David Plouffe, is actually in the White House.

Obama has been interviewed in recent weeks by reporters from Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Virginia and Iowa. Yesterday he spoke with reporters from Indiana, Colorado, and North Carolina. And, to provide some cover for this nakedly political effort, they added a guy from Texas, a state Obama can’t possibly win. Big mistake.