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From the White House press corps gaggle on Air Force One, en route to Minnesota today:
Q Also, anything on these protests outside the White House on this pipeline? Has the President decided against TransCanada’s permit for the pipeline? It’s the tar sands pipeline. There have been a lot of arrests outside the White House about it.
MR. CARNEY: I don’t have anything new on that. I believe the State Department has — that’s under the purview of the State Department presently, but I don’t have anything new on that.
Q Is the President aware of the protests?
MR. CARNEY: I haven’t talked to him about it.
So, there you have it: almost six hundred protesters arrested right in front of the White House — including, today, actress Daryl Hannah — and Press Secretary Jay Carney claims he doesn’t know if the President is aware of the protests because he hasn’t talked to him about it.
This is a credibility gap.
Here’s Bill McKibben:
Now, here’s the thing: while it’s great to see the press corps pushing the Administration to recognize our demonstration, the fact that Carney hasn’t yet briefed the President on the protest and the pipeline is a worrying sign about how out of touch this administration is on this issue.
“Just in the last two days everyone from the president’s chief climate scientist to an 84-year-old grandmother was arrested on his front doorstep,” said environmental author Bill McKibben, who is spearheading the White House protest. “This is the largest civil disobedience action in the environmental movement in a generation, and if they really aren’t even discussing it with the president, that signals a deep disrespect for their supporters, especially young people who have demonstrated that the environment is a top priority.”
Welcome to “under the bus,” environmentalists and eco-conscious Eaarth citizens. We gays have decorated it quite festively, and our Latino and other immigrant communities have added their own touches as well. We’ve all been thrown under here, sacrificed to the highest goal: Obama’s re-election. You’d better clear the way, though, because there are other disappointed Obama constituencies joining us under here soon.
69 Comments
tweeted and recommended teddy
LBJ and Dick Nixon said they couldn’t hear the war protesters.
But they could. Kept ‘em both up at night.
Thank you, Suzanne!
Obama is unlikely to pay much attention to only 600 people. After all, he’s ignored many thousands for years.
Well, yes, I take your point, but these folks are right in his front yard. Every day, about 100 more.
But it’s still not very many people, that was my point. The Vietnam protests were on a completely different scale.
Please he knows and he doesn’t give a hoot. he is a puppet doing what his masters want.
Good post (as usual) but TYPO ALERT; one too many “a’s” in earth in the last graph.
You’re right, he doesn’t give a hoot. You could have ten times the number of people at the WH and he still wouldn’t care. But 600? He’ll bat that away without a second thought.
I will provide the magic little blinking lights for the under the bus decor. And – what does need to be piped in – protest music. Enjoyed and recommended.
Damn, it’s getting crowded under here. We’re going to have to get a bigger bus…
True but doesn’t matter. It’s never a waste of time to protest. Good on them.
Mr. Carney says they have not talked about it, but lets not kid ourselves, they have talked plenty about it and are still wondering what to do about it in addition to the arrests.
They can hear us, they just are not listening.
Thanks for the post Teddy.
D-Day links to this in his Roundup today:
If you received fundraising emails from Barack Obama or campaign manager David Plouffe in 2008, it probably comes as no surprise that Obama and Plouffe didn’t write all of them. They began with “Friend –” and included links to credit-card donation forms. The campaign regularly blasted them out to millions of people.
Elijah Zarlin, the author of many of these emails as part of Obama’s new-media campaign team, was arrested today outside the White House during a protest of the Keystone XL pipeline, a proposed oil conduit from Alberta, Canada to the Gulf Coast. Zarlin was one of Obama’s primary fundraising-email-writers, according to Zarlin and Stephen Geer, a new-media staffer on Obama’s campaign payroll.
http://news.firedoglake.com/2011/08/30/the-roundup-for-august-30-2011/
It would seem very clear that Mr. Obama has a growing credibility problem with components of his party’s base.
It’s a reference to Bill McKibben’s book: “Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet. Link to the FDL Book Salon:
http://firedoglake.com/2010/05/08/fdl-book-salon-welcomes-bill-mckibben-eaarth-making-a-life-on-a-tough-new-planet/
Holy Flying Spaghetti Monster!
Is Mr Carney old enough to even have a driver’s license?!
Criminately. The White House seems to become more like Verseilles every day, n’est pas?
Maybe if Oprah was arrested President Zero would take notice.
How big a bus would it take to put the planet under?
Nope. She’s under the bus with everyone else.
Verily, indeed.
Classic! So glad he’s there.
You are welcome.
That’s what is called a credibility gap: when the press secretary tells obvious lies from the podium (or his seat on AF1). Nowadays, though, the press corps clearly doesn’t call him on it.
If you don’t have enough people or the people don’t stay around to protest for weeks and months, it indeed can be a waste of time in that other more effective actions could have been taken. Do you really believe that there are thousands of people ready and willing to protest for weeks in front of the WH? If so, where are they?
It’s not a press “corps.” It’s courtesans in the “press.”
The press corps will not call him on it because they would lose that prestigious ride on AF1 never to be seen again in the press room.
Obama’s thrown practically everyone under the bus that voted for him in 2008. Who’s left to re-elect him? Crossover tea baggers?
Well greenwarrior is bringing the mood lighting. We could be more green and get the low-power LED kind in rainbow colors. Must have Reggae.
Yup. Oprah is way too liberal for Obama. Under the bus for her!
A most revealing post, Teddy, thank you.
As you say, a “credibility gap” …
Recommended to the thoughtful consideration of all.
One notes that all commenters are, so far, in apparent agreement with the protestors and the moral value of what they are doing, as well as your assessment.
DW
Hey, I did hear Maxine Waters constituents telling her to go after O and go after him big time. (Heard this on NPR). Waters is addressing her troops, telling them she can’t put pressure on O unless they turn her loose, and people starting yelling stuff like, ‘Go get him Maxine’. It was a very noisy room.
So, yeah, there will be a lot of O constiutencies under that bus. It’s tough to vote in that position.
No she is not. She’s shilling for school privatization.
She’s living proof that welfare hurts the poor, that bootstraps are in plentiful supply and the blacks in this post racial society need to take responsibility for themselves and join the expanding middle class where hard work pays off. /s not.
Mr. Carney is of course a liar, thus his present employment.
Nicely done Teddy. Rec’d.
It’s not so bad under the bus. Good company anyway. I like it!
AFAIK, Oprah is still an Obama Supporter.
She shouldn’t be, but she is. Tom Hanks, Spielberg.
Are they going to look stupid when Obama takes his hatchet to Social Security?
Are there enough rich people to support the Movie Industry?
Like everything else, the answer is NO.
Every Industry has got to have Average Joes and Janes feeding their shekels into it.
Just ask the Catholic Church. Or the Crystal Cathedral. Nevermind.
Carney could take some lessons from Ron Ziegler.
The important thing is that the Corporations win!
Pretty good head fake huh? That she couldn’t/hadn’t opposed the President until then because “You’all Love this President!”
About a hundred of them have shown up every day for more than a week, which you’d know if you followed FDL’s reporting. It’s the largest environmental civil disobedience in a generation.
The numbers may not satisfy you, but more people are showing up and getting arrested every day.
Yes, I would rather be with those whom Obama considers sinners than with those whom he apparently considers saints, RAD …
Not only is the company the best, one imagines the conversation much more lively and pleasant.
;~DW
Exactly.
In the case of the pipeline, Tim, that is not so until Obama signs off on it.
At which time it will be very interesting to see who is accused of “making” him do it?
It may be that Obama does not notice what goes on outside of the People’s House which he is occupying for only a time, however many others ARE noticing what is going on, in fact, more attention is focusing on what goes on in front of the White House every single day.
Leading more people to ponder what is going on inside of it as well.
DW
Carney is a lying scumbag working for a lying scumbag. I’m going to laugh when the fatass drug addicted pedophile Rush Limbaugh makes hay with Obama’s DUI Illegal Alien Resident brother.
No matter how far Obama bends over for them, they find a new way to fuck him. And he loves it.
Obama: “Hey!, Now cut that out!”
Waht a joke Mr. Hope and Change has played on us.
Sheesh, you can drive a truck through this one. Carney has not talked to Obama about it. He’s talked to plenty of others about it but not Obama we can easily conclude. This sort of plausibility deniability runs through everything these flacks say. Just as likely it’s the sort of thing the staff specifically does not talk to Carney about.
Then after all that maybe he is just lying. Why not? We have an empire to run for cripes sake.
Shoto August 30th, 2011 at 2:52 pm «
Damn, it’s getting crowded under here. We’re going to have to get a bigger bus…
There are just about enough of us under here………..let’s tip this fucking bus the hell OVER.
If the protests were a peaceful execise in front of the people’s White House, why was anyone arrested? Was a law broken? BO must know about this now; will he say anything in defense of free speech?
Sad Alert! The Energy Secretary Steven Chu is sad because the Teabaggers are winning the debate about climate change. But Chu does not mention the “debate” is financed by Exxon and BP.
The Obama shills do not fight anyway. They never fight the Teabaggers because they need to negotiate away environmental protection. Chu is not sad about the environmental devastation of Oil Shale and their dangerous pipelines.
He will be well-paid, hackworth, for his little charade.
Yet he must move from the bubble to a life behind the stockade.
Then where will he strut, with which “astute” will he promenade?
Many may say that wiley Obama really has got “it” made,
‘Though he’ll spend the rest of his life hiding away from the light, deep in the shade …
DW
it will be very interesting to see who is accused of “making” him do it?
Karnak says the response from Carney’s boss will be:
“Let me be clear: This will create jobs!”
I’m tired of listening to people (including the POTUS) equate the DJ Industrial Average with the standard of living of most Americans.
But he got his. He’s now a card-carrying member of:
Subordinates of the MOTU
Such membership is good for life. Just ask Judd Gregg!
I do not believe Obama cares one damn about re-election. I do believe he cares about wealth, his own wealth.
A year ago there was an oil spill in Michigan – it was kept very quiet but it was a tar sands oil spill. Want to read what happens, after a year?
http://michiganmessenger.com/51128/the-enbridge-oil-spill-one-year-later
Somebody point Obama to this article –
http://michiganmessenger.com/52046/ignoring-enbridge-spill-lessons-state-dept-claims-keystone-xl-rupture-would-not-impact-public-health
“Welcome to ‘under the bus,’ environmentalists and eco-conscious Eaarth citizens. We gays have decorated it quite festively, and our Latino and other immigrant communities have added their own touches as well. We’ve all been thrown under here, sacrificed to the highest goal: Obama’s re-election.”
Boy do I agree:
http://my.firedoglake.com/alamacthc/2011/08/28/obama-worship-updated/
@DavidH, You sound like a leader.
We need really good ideas so that we don’t waste time. Can you tell us what actions would have been more effective?
Pretty soon, there’ll be more people under the bus than on it.
The Arab Spring started with a few hundred and built from that
Can we all just vote this administration under the bus, teach the most meaningful lesson by example- even if it costs- about selling out people, right and wrong, nigh, good and evil.. about the policies we demand right now and always for the benefit of our people? Can we be strong and vocal and condemn loudly what we deem unconscionable and evil, even to OUR leadership? Then, it will not be just this administration, out of respect, but any soul-less Republicans out of fear and strong political reprisal.
We better be heart and soul with these protesters who are showing the way! Feet on the ground men and women- now is a good time for a revolt.. revulsion is everywhere in our midst.
Mr Carney would have us believe that the same Administration premptively pursuing Federal charges a full three hours before 14 citizens stood on that fence earlier in the year — has not discussed the 500+ being arrested at that same fence ?!?!?
http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2011/08/29/dept-of-interior-recommended-federal-charges-vs-dadt-protesters-3-hours-before-they-demonstrated/
then again, this is the same clown posse that hasn’t ‘discussed’ the 24 million+ unemployed – so ya know, guess it’s possible X~O
“it will be very interesting to see who is accused of “making” him do it?”
Unions? The elites in both parties love to keep workers and environmentalists fighting each other despite many people belonging to both groups rather than one or the other.
Agree with shekissesfrogs and it does sound like you may be devaluing protest.
Does it have to be effective by your standards or can there be more ways protest is necessary and useful than just the obvious?
Agreed about weeks, maybe it should be much more open ended?
Dana doesn’t speak to the President unless he’s spoken to, professional courtesy, so it’s believable.
I’d like to ask Mr. President what his favorite popcorn and soft drink are while he watches the daily snuff films of the empire killing peoples’ children or is that more of a beer and snacks kind of thing.
Try asking Art Carney if he agrees with Rush Limbaugh’s reasoning on why Colin Powell will probably vote for Art’s boss again.
Yeah. There really is good company here under the bus. Still not a great place to be. Gawd.
http://www.keystonepipeline-xl.state.gov/clientsite/keystonexl.nsf?Open
Why does Obama need credibility, a base, or supporters? Wall Street has given him enough money to buy an election. Maybe he could bribe the voters like they do in some places.
And if the NSA is still spying on us, well…
“Make me do it!” Remember that line Barry stole from FDR?
So, Barry pretends he wants people to advocate for change in order to make his job easier. But when they do, including being arrested, he doesn’t hear about it. Really? This may be a lie, but it’s also an insult. Frankly, I’d rather be called a F-ing Retard!
It’s a press corpse.
That was my point, Teddy. It’s a hundred people.
I guess I can make no brief for Maxine. But that loud crowd made me feel proud to be a Progressive.