Jay Carney

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About Obama’s New Baghdad Bob

May 31, 2014 by 5 Comments

The odious White House Press Secretary Jay Carney resigned yesterday and his replacement has been announced. It will be Josh Earnest who had been Special Assistant to the President and Principal Deputy Press Secretary and Chief of Staff in the White House Office of Communications.

Earnest goes back a long ways with Obama. He first started working for Obama in March 2007 as the Iowa Communications Director. As such, I’m guessing he is one of the true believers to have stayed around for so long.

Among all the yada-yada details I found about Earnest – from Kansas City, went to the private Barstow School on scholarship, degree from Rice University – was this tidbit.

The political bug bit, and Earnest worked on the campaign of former Houston mayor Lee Brown after graduating from Rice. Earnest went on to New York, where he served as an aide on former mayor Michael Bloomberg’s first campaign, and became spokesman at the Democratic National Committee.

According to Mediaite, he was a “communications advisor” when he worked for Bloomberg. Supposedly, Bloomberg’s first campaign was rather awkward. Bloomberg’s campaign strategist David Garth described Bloomberg, accurately in my opinion, as “a prick”.

This is just speculation on my part but I would not be surprised to see a greater coordination of message on gun control between the White House and Everytown Moms for Illegal Mayors. It just makes sense. Obama likes to use extra-legal means to achieve his goals and Bloomberg has the money to pay for the ads. Earnest makes the ideal conduit. We’ll just have to wait and see.

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The White House Still Dances Around Gun Control

August 7, 2012 by

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, who could give the Dancing With The Stars contestants lessons, continues to dance around the issue of gun control. The shootings at the Sikh Temple in Milwaukee, Wisconsin led to the obligatory questions from the media at today’s press briefing on whether or not President Obama is going to push for gun control legislation.

On new gun control legislation Carney said:

Q: But does anything — either one of these incidents suggest that there need to be new gun control legislation?

MR. CARNEY: I think the President addressed this at the Urban League, John. And his view is, as I’ve said, that we need to take common-sense measures that protect Second Amendment rights and make it harder for those who should not have weapons under existing law from obtaining weapons.

I think he made clear, too, in his speech in New Orleans that violence in America is a problem that is greater than just the issue of gun laws. And he talked very clearly about the prevalence of violence in America, that even as overall statistics show that crime has gone down over these last many years but there is still too much violence. And incidents like the ones you mentioned are horrific, and our hearts go out to the victims of such appalling acts of violence, but we should not forget that there are victims of violence every day in America, and we need to address that problem in a concerted way that deals with education and summer jobs and other ways to help address the violence problem in America.

I must say that anytime I hear a politician or their flacks use the expression “common-sense measures”, I know they are just itching to impose more restrictions.

Of course, in what seems to be a popular refrain in this White House, Carney went on to essentially blame Congress for being the impediment to gun control legislation.

Q: Does the President share Minority Leader Pelosi’s view that even if Democrats controlled Congress, there still wouldn’t be the votes for significant gun legislation? And is that why the White House hasn’t pushed for new or tougher legislation more strongly?

MR. CARNEY: Well, I think the President has made his views plain on this, which is that he is for common-sense measures that protect Second Amendment rights — very important Second Amendment rights that American citizens have, but that make it harder and harder for those who should not have weapons under existing law from obtaining them.

There is no question that there has been a reluctance to act in Congress on these issues. Whether that will continue to be the case in the future is anyone’s prediction. The President is focused on the progress we can make along the lines I just described.

So again, his positions on various issues I think we’ve talked about. He believes that we can take action within the existing environment that moves the ball forward in terms of enforcement, that enhances background checks, that makes it harder for those who shouldn’t have weapons under existing law — makes it harder for them to obtain weapons, but continues to ensure that Second Amendment rights are protected.

Whether Carney wants to make the prediction for more gun control legislation in the future or not, I think virtually everyone on our side of the issue fully expects more gun control if Obama is re-elected. It may be overt as in legislation or it may be under the radar with how they “interpret” laws and regulations. Without the need to worry about re-election, Obama and his minions won’t be obliged to offer platitudes about “Second Amendment rights” and their protection nor will they feel constrained in their efforts to undercut our freedoms.

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Jay Carney Takes The Press And Americans For Idiots

June 28, 2012 by 2 Comments

Jay Carney, President Obama’s Press Secretary, must think both the press and the public are idiots. Listen to his explanation of how Obama learned of Operation Fast and Furious.

The full text of what he said, courtesy of Breitbart, is below:

“I would only say broadly that the idea behind that thinking suggests that there was some grand plan behind the Fast and Furious program when, in fact, everyone knows the President did not know about this tactic until he heard about it through the media; the Attorney General did not know about it. The tactic itself was employed by the previous administration in a different operation. This was a field office tactic that was flawed. And when the Attorney General learned about it, he took action to ensure that it was no longer used, and he directed the Inspector General at the Department of Justice to investigate.”

How could Obama learn of Operation Fast and Furious from the media when they have avoided reporting it – Sharyl Attkisson and William LaJeunesse excepted – like the plague? It was only this past week that NBC even let the words “fast and furious” touch Brian William’s lips.

My message to Jay Carney is that we just are not as stupid as he thinks.

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You Can Fool Some Of The People All Of The Time…

October 6, 2011 by

You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.

The above quote come from President Abraham Lincoln. I seem to remember back in January 2009 there were some foolish people who compared Obama to Lincoln. What a difference two and a half years make.

Today we have Obama’s Press Secretary Jay Carney being asked about Attorney General Eric Holder and Operation Fast and Furious. His dissembling answer to the press makes me wonder if Carney is trying to outdo former Press Secretary Robert Gibbs in evasive smarminess.

From the White House transcript:

Q There have been calls for a general counsel to investigate whether or not the Attorney General perjured himself when testifying about Fast and Furious. Does the President have a reaction?

MR. CARNEY: Well, there has been one call — and I think it’s a biannual call for a special counsel by this particular congressman. Once every six months we hear something similar. And the fact is, the Attorney General’s testimony to both the House and the Senate was consistent and truthful.

He said in both March and May of this year that he became aware of the questionable tactics employed in the Fast and Furious operation in early 2011, when ATF agents first raised them publicly. And he then asked the Inspector General’s Office to investigate the matter, demonstrating how seriously he took them.

Q The question in May was when did he first hear about Fast and Furious? Not the questionable tactics, but when did he first hear of the program?

MR. CARNEY: Look, the Attorney General’s testimony was consistent and truthful. And calls for special counsels, which seem to be a regular occurrence, do not change that fact.

And when the Attorney General learned about the questionable tactics, he asked the Inspector General’s Office to investigate the matter.

Yes.

Another report came back to this topic and it includes references to Eric Schultz’s hissy fit with screaming and cursing aimed at CBS Investigative Report Sharyl Attkisson.

Q Thanks, Jay. I want to go back to Fast and Furious because what you said the Attorney General said is not what he said. He said, quote — and this is in May of this year — “I’m not sure of the exact date but I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks.” Now these documents that Jake was referring to say that he was actually told the first time about this July 2010 and October of 2010 —

MR. CARNEY: Well, you’re suggesting — first of all, I would refer you to the Department of Justice that is handling this.

Q He’s the President’s Attorney General, so —

MR. CARNEY: Yes, and the President believes he’s an excellent Attorney General and has great confidence in him, and we absolutely know that the testimony he gave was consistent and truthful. And —

Q So how does he have confidence in him if he’s a year off on what —

MR. CARNEY: If a piece of paper in a document that’s many, many pages long contained a phrase that discussed nothing about the tactics that are at issue here, I think what we’re talking about —

Q But he didn’t talk about — I just want to be clear. In his quote he never said tactics. He said —

MR. CARNEY: Ed, the Attorney General’s testimony —

Q — the first time he heard about it —

MR. CARNEY: — was consistent and truthful.

Q — and in the document, in July, he heard about it.

MR. CARNEY: Consistent and truthful.

Q Okay, but you’re not addressing the fact that he was not talking about questionable tactics.

MR. CARNEY: I think I just did.

Q In his quote in May, he said, “The first time I heard about it was a few weeks ago.”

MR. CARNEY: The issue here is not the name, it’s what happened and the questionable tactics. When he heard that, as testified, he asked the Inspector General’s Office to investigate it aggressively, and he has cooperated with — the Department of Justice has cooperated with the congressional investigation. So what he’s testified to is consistent and truthful, and his cooperation — both the fact that he believes it was a problem that needed to be investigated is demonstrated by the action he took, and the department has cooperated with the Congress as it looks into the matter.

Q So to clear up any confusion, when was the first time the President —

MR. CARNEY: Again, I —

Q No, no, not the Attorney General. When was the first time the President heard about this program?

MR. CARNEY: Well, as he said in public, in a press conference, he heard about it when he read about it. And that was sometime earlier this year. I think the press conference was in El Salvador when he was on that trip, and he referenced having heard about it recently. I don’t have a specific day.

Q Okay. And Sheryl Atkinson of CBS News is saying that a few days ago, I believe, a White House official and a Justice Department official was yelling and screaming at her — she’s been reporting about this for some time — about this whole story.

You were a reporter once. When government officials start yelling at you, sometimes it’s because they’re getting defensive, right? Why would they be yelling at her?

MR. CARNEY: First of all, I have no insight into the conversations she may or may not have had. Second of all, I know that you guys are all hard-bitten, veteran journalists and probably don’t complain when you have tough conversations with your sources sometimes. Again, this is just generally speaking.

I don’t know about it. I think it’s —

Q But she’s a credible reporter. When you say, “I’m not sure what conversations she had,” I mean, she said this on the record that she was yelled at and screamed at. Why would the administration be yelling at her about this story? I don’t —

MR. CARNEY: Again, I take issue with the report. I don’t know that it’s true. I’m just — what I think is that I know you are tough enough to handle an extra decibel or two in a phone conversation. I’m not sure that that happened here, but it’s a surprising complaint.

As I said yesterday, the response of Tracy Schmaler and Eric Schultz reminded me of a fear-biting dog. It lashes out because it is scared and it appears they are acting in exactly the same manner.