New White House Press Secretary Discusses Deputy Defense Secretary Pick

Team Infidel

Forum Spin Doctor
CNN
January 22, 2009

The Situation Room (CNN), 5:00 PM
WOLF BLITZER: Let's head over to the White House right now.
Our senior White House correspondent, Ed Henry, is standing by -- Ed, new briefing, new press secretary today.
How did it go, do you think, for Robert Gibbs?
ED HENRY: Well, it was interesting. He is somebody who, as you said a moment ago, the press secretary tried not to make news. And on the first day, he was trying to walk that fine line and push back on some of the tough questions we were throwing at him. One of them is about the president's pledge yesterday that he's cracking down on Washington -- that he's trying to stop the revolving door, crack down on the influence of lobbyists.
Specifically, he vowed that he'd have stricter limits than any other previous administration. And he said if you're a lobbyist entering his administration, you cannot work on matters you've lobbied before.
So keeping them honest, I asked Robert Gibbs a question about why the president picked William Lynn to be a top defense official, even though he's most recently been a lobbyist for Raytheon, a major defense contractor.
Robert Gibbs insisted this is not a problem.
Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ROBERT GIBBS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: ...from walking...
HENRY: The secretary to the Defense Secretary is a pretty big job. We're at war in two countries right now.
GIBBS: Well...
HENRY: So he's a lobbyist and now he's going to be Deputy Defense Secretary.
GIBBS: Right. And if he ever leaves this administration, he'll never -- as the president said -- be able to lobby this administration as it relates to the work that it does for the length or entirety of that administration. Again, what the president did yesterday was institute the strongest ethical and transparency guidelines that any administration has lived under in the history of the country. (END VIDEO CLIP)
HENRY: So you can see right there Robert Gibbs is using a tactic you've known well before, Wolf, that other press secretaries have tried to use, which is to focus on the part of the question they want to, which is that when William Lynn leaves the government -- the way Barack Obama has set up the system -- then he will not be able to lobby this administration anymore.
But that's not really the question. The question was about why he's coming into the administration now, even though he's most recently been a lobbyist.
What's interesting is that Defense -- the Armed Services chairman, Carl Levin, Democrat from Michigan, today was saying today on Capitol Hill that there are a lot more questions now about this nomination. He's not sure can move forward unless the administration explains how exactly this fits into the president's own new standard -- Wolf.
BLITZER: Interesting stuff.
 
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