The Hardest Job In The World

Press Secretary Robert Gibbs has what I believe is rapidly becoming the most difficult job in the world. Check out this transcript from today's press briefing, in which the press pool tries in vain to get his take on the "no C-Span" edict from the White House:

QUESTION: During the campaign the President on numerous occasions said words to the effect of -- quoting one -- "all of this will be done on C-SPAN in front of the public." Do you agree that the President is breaking an explicit campaign promise?

GIBBS: Chip, we covered this yesterday and I would refer you to yesterday's transcript.

QUESTION: But today is today and --

GIBBS: And the answer that I would give today is similar to the one --

QUESTION: But there was an intervening meeting in which it's been reported that the President pressed the leaders in Congress to take the fast-track approach, to skip the conference committee. Did he do that?

GIBBS: The President wants to get a bill to his desk as quickly as possible.

Read the whole transcript, but the condensed version is Gibbs gives lots of non-answers.

Really, what is there for him to say. He can't come out and say, "yes, the President lied when he said healthcare deliberations would be on C-Span." He'd be a special political correspondent for CBS News three hours later. No one wants that job.

His only other option is to put his fingers in his ears and do the la-la-la thing that small children do in that cliche. What a depressing way to start you day: knowing you're going to get asked a bunch of hard questions to which everyone in the room knows the answer, but be unable to give that answer because the most powerful man in the world would disembowel you for saying it.

I almost feel sorry for him. Then I remember the stimulus and bailouts and the various disses of Britain and the deficit and...

Anyway, I don't feel sorry for him.