Fox News Watch host Jon Scott on Saturday asked his guests why President Obama typically ignores Fox News at his rare press conferences.
Kirsten Powers smartly answered, "Because he doesn't want to be embarrassed" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
JON SCOTT, HOST: Eric Ostermeier - to go to your point, Judy - at the University of Minnesota put together a piece called “Fox Still Shunned at Obama Press Conferences.” “A smart politics analysis,” he writes, “finds that ABC reporters have been called on the most frequently during Barack Obama’s solo news conferences followed by CBS, the Associated Press, and NBC with Fox News coming in at a distant ninth in less than half of the rate of the top outlets, less than 40 percent of the press conferences overall.” Why does the president not like to call on us?
KIRSTEN POWERS: Because he doesn't want to be embarrassed, really. Because when he's asked a question, the same way, you know, when Ed Henry asks questions in the, to Jay Carney, inevitably Jay Carney ends up looking stupid because he doesn't know how to answer the question. He’s used to pushing people around, and you know, it will be tenacious, he’ll get asked about something he doesn't want to get asked about, and he wants softballs.
Indeed.
Why call on Fox when the representatives there from virtually every other so-called news organization are on his team and wouldn't dare do anything that might challenge him?
For those interested, here's the UM analysis Scott referred to.
