by Byron York
Washington Examiner
1/6/10
On Tuesday, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs declined to answer questions about the president’s campaign commitment to hold health-care negotiations on C-Span. Gibbs said he had not seen a letter from C-Span’s Brian Lamb to congressional leaders requesting the coverage and thus could not comment on it.
On Wednesday, Gibbs was asked again about the C-Span commitment. The story had gotten pretty big in the intervening time, and presumably Gibbs had had a chance to familiarize himself with it. So reporters tried for a second day to get him to comment on the president’s commitment to holding televised health-care talks. Gibbs’ answer? “We covered this yesterday.” Gibbs referred reporters to the transcript of Tuesday’s briefing and said, “The answer I would give today is similar.”
But of course, he hadn’t answered the question at all. Here is the transcript from the Tuesday briefing:
QUESTION: C-Span television is requesting leaders in Congress to open up the debate to their cameras, and I know this is something that the President talked about on the campaign trail. Is this something that he supports, will be pushing for?
GIBBS: I have not seen that letter. I know the President is going to begin some discussions later today on health care in order to try to iron out the differences that remain between the House and the Senate bill and try to get something hopefully to his desk quite quickly….
Later in that same briefing, a reporter raised the C-Span issue again…
The article continues at the Examiner.
