Calculated Candor Inside Obama’s Off-the-Record Briefings

Calculated Candor Inside Obama’s Off-the-Record Briefings

Technically off the record, the president’s extended conversation in the Roosevelt Room that afternoon with 18 prominent columnists was part of a White House tradition aimed at influencing Washington thought leaders without leaving fingerprints – and without fear that an offhand comment from the commander in chief would spark the latest social media firestorm.

And they wonder why we’re skeptical about the objectivism of the MSM? 

Via The NY Times (!)

WASHINGTON — Hours after President Obama announced in a 2014 speech that he was escalating his campaign against Islamic extremists, a number of prominent columnists suggested they knew exactly what he was thinking.

Michael Tomasky, a correspondent for The Daily Beast, wrote that “Obama clearly feels he has the constitutional authority to go after ISIS anywhere and everywhere.” Gerald F. Seib, the Washington bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal, was equally certain about what “the president calculated.”

The next day, Fred Kaplan wrote in a Slate column that “Obama is loath to bring Iran or Assad’s Syria — both Shiite regimes — into the alliance” and asserted with confidence that “Obama is allergic to ‘mission creep.’”

What none of the journalists told readers, because they had promised the White House that they would not, was that their attempts to portray the president’s intentions had followed a lengthy and secret meeting with Mr. Obama the day he delivered the speech.

Technically off the record, the president’s extended conversation in the Roosevelt Room that afternoon with 18 prominent columnists was part of a White House tradition aimed at influencing Washington thought leaders without leaving fingerprints — and without fear that an offhand comment from the commander in chief would spark the latest social media firestorm.

These presidential briefings are “a way for people to be able to set aside the urgency of supplying the latest quote from the president of the United States and sit back and listen to the broader argument,” said Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary. He declined to comment on the participants or the content of the discussions.

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