Jay Carney was a Time magazine reporter, bureau chief and frequent TV talking head. He is married to ABC reporter Claire Shipman. He left journalism to be Joe Biden’s communications director, andwas just namedBarack Obama’s next press secretary.
It used to bemore common to see people criticize thismedia/politics revolving door. Journalists who jump over the supposed divide between the supposed watchdogs andthe powerful institutions they’re watching do little to dispel the sense that the Beltway is one big cocktail party. (Read “Party Like a Beltway Insider Journalist!”–FAIR Blog, 4/26/10–for some sense of the terrain.)
Which brings me to Howard Fineman‘s piece about Carney in Huffington Post (1/27/11). Which starts out with this:
Among his other attributes, Jay Carney is a cool dancer. I know that because I saw him and his wife, Claire Shipman, getting down on the tented dance floor of a fancy Georgetown wedding years ago. Jay Carney, who went to Yale and was a foreign correspondent in Moscow, is–besides being smart, savvy, loyal and well-connected with the right sort–suave.
Who cares was Howard Fineman has to say. He never takes a stand – he always punts on a question.
And across the aisle, John’s Deboehner. Let US DANCE!
Obamas last guy was the worst.BAM could say the sky is full of pink elephants and these clowns have to explain it.It has always been a circus job.
uh, how quickly they forget true badness in press secretaries….
Appearing on NPR’s quiz show, “Wait, Wait … Don’t Tell Me,” Dana Perino admitted a story she’d previously only shared in private: When a reporter asked her a question during a White House briefing in which he referred to the Cuban Missile Crisis — she didn’t know what it was.
Yea saying who was the actual worst press secretary is kind pointing to a job where one of the interview questions is “could you lie if you had to”?