As I watched tonight's press conference I found myself very bored. Obama simply restated his policies in a vague and unspecific way. We have heard these same statements over and over again from Obama and I have to wonder why he needed yet another press conference just to repeat himself with no new details!
The real problem, however, was that the questions permitted (these are always pre-screened) did not get at any of the key issues. No questions about the criticism of Geithner and Summers from influential economists like Paul Krugman, no questions of any length or depth about prosecuting of those who committed torture.
Even more disturbing nothing of substance was addressed about critical foreign Policy issues like how progress can be made on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, or what will really happen to our relations to Cuba.
Perhaps most disturbing, there was no discussion of the environment. Obama keeps pursuing a "cap and trade" scheme. His pick for Secretary of energy Stephen Chu, has said - as most scientist have - that far more than that must be done. Why is Obama refusing to listen to his own pick?
The problem is simply this: until we actually allow unscreened questions from journalist who are not beholden to the establishment, we will not have press conferences that are truly informative
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