I thought you might want to take a look at how White House Press Secretary Jay Carney spun the New York Nine special election, in which a Republican sought to make the election a referendum on President Obama and won easily in a district that hasn’t gone Republican in nearly a century.
“Nothing to see here, please move on,” was the message from Mr. Carney.
I can only say that either Jay – who, as he mentions, is a former reporter – either knows better and is doing the what he is required to do if he wants to keep being White House press secretary, or he has drunk all the West Wing Koolaid and now moved on to the Hawaiian Punch.
From today’s gaggle aboard Air Force One.
Q And Jay, what’s the reaction to the elections last night? How can they be viewed as anything other than a referendum on the President and where he stands with voters?
MR. CARNEY: I know I’m a little older than you, but you’ve been around long enough to know, as a reporter, as I was, that special elections are often unique and their outcomes do not tell you very much about future regularly scheduled elections. And I’m sure that you and everyone else here did not write, after Democrats won all, I believe, the special elections in 2009 and 2010, that that foretold a certain outcome in the 2010 midterms. Certainly, this election has no other bearing.
Q But those 2009 elections were before major administration policies were passed; it was before health care, it was before financial regulation. These seem more like a referendum on what’s going on, but if you’re —
MR. CARNEY: Hans, you can make those predictions and look foolish in 14 months or not. I’m simply saying that we do not view it that way.
Q Okay. Do you view these elections as a wakeup call, then? That you need to reach a —
MR. CARNEY: I think that the — one election in what had been a Democratic seat is unique to that district, to the circumstances around what created — that caused the special election to take place. And judge it as you will, I think it’s a very specific case in a specific district in, obviously, a very low turnout election.
Q So, not an indicator species at all? Won’t it all —
MR. CARNEY: I think I’ve answered the question. The answer is no.
Of course, he resorts to an insult. Typical modus operandi of the White House press office, though such not-niceties are usually reserved for private conversations.
8 thoughts on “Carney: New York Special Nothing Special”
Not only has he moved to the Hawaiian Punch, he’s telling stories. I seem to remember a special election in 2010 that was won by a Republican. Scott Brown drove his pickup truck all the way to Washington to take Ted Kennedy’s place. The 2010 mid-terms should have been a wake-up call to Democrats but they forged ahead, following Obama all the way to the edge of the cliff. Maybe it’s good that they keep their heads in the sand. They won’t see us coming ;-)
Would it have killed him to admit that the special election was a big loss and THEN spin it to something like “the President is going to make a special effort to reach out to the Jewish community” or some such drivel?
Oh, what am I saying..
Every Dem who agreed to comment said something equally as stupid as MrCarney’s remarks. From MsW-Schultz to every Dem from NewYork made fools of themselves today.
Oh they didn’t “make fools of themselves today” They were ALREADY proven fools by their previous behavior.. they only continue to confirm
their neanderthal traits by following obozo the clown..
That wasn’t the song they were singing in Wisconsin when they won two of six recall elections. They said that was a bellwether, even though it resulted in no effective difference.
I heard an old adage today: “If you lie with dogs, you get fleas.”
Apparently they must get testy also.
Most ‘reporters’ in American can’t report . . . so what do they do? The become pundits. Jay is even worse than a pundit because the ‘integrity’ of the President comes through the mouth of his mouthpiece: one and the same.
He’s not drinking the Kool-Aid, he’s snorting the stuff right from the package.
When Jay loses his job in 2012, will he be welcomed back into the family of journalists?
He’ll probably get a position at one of Soros’ leftist think tanks.
Comments are closed.