Robert Gibbs doesn't know what he's doing
Very few people, if any, have pointed out the fact that the White House press secretary Robert Gibbs is a screw-up who does not know President Obama well enough to be Press Secretary.
Gibbs made a gigantic mistake on April 20th by telling the world that President Obama wished to prosecute no one associated with torture: neither Bush officials nor CIA interrogators. This turned out to be false, or so Obama said two days later.
CNN'S ED HENRY: Just so I understand, you're saying the people in the CIA who followed through on what they were told was legal, they should not be prosecuted? But why not the Bush administration lawyers who, in the eyes of a lot of your supporters on the left, twisted the law, why are they not being held accountable?
GIBBS: The president is focused on looking forward. That's why.
Yes, the President's views on torture are a big, delicate issue that needs to be addressed accurately.
Less widely noticed was a statement by Gibbs on April 14th in which he denied to Hellen Thomas that the President ever taught Constutional Law.
This falsehood was subsequently debunked:
Factcheck.org: According to the University of Chicago Law School:
U.C. Law School News Release, Nov. 4 2008: Barack Obama taught at the Law School from 1992 until his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004. During those years, he brought a dynamic teaching presence to his courses, which included"Constitutional Law III: Equal Protection," "Voting Rights and the Democratic Process," and a seminar entitled "Current Issues in Racism and the Law."
One caveat is that perhaps Obama had privately told both Gibbs and Emanuel (who made statements similar to Gibbs' the same week) that he opposed prosecution of both Bush officials and CIA interrogators , but felt compelled to flip flop as a means of damage control in response to the outrage in the progressive blogosphere.
For now, let's assume scenario #1 is correct, and Gibbs misrepresented Obama's position.
Gibbs should either prepare himself prior to each WH briefing, or resign. We do not need a misinformer creating confusion in the news world for two days, as was the case earlier this week.
