For a while, Martha Joynt Kumar, a Towson University political scientist who has paid closer attention to the White House press corps and White House press office than any academic, was keeping an informal “snooze index.”
From her post toward the back of the White House press briefing room, she would note how many people dozed off while Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, was holding forth on the podium during his afternoon news briefings.
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It was a regular occurrence.
Gibbs is not the most entertaining press secretary to speak for a president over the past several decades. But what he lacks in sparkling repartee, he more than covers with authoritative reports on policy.
After all, as one of President Barack Obama’s closest advisers, he is more likely than not to have been part of the team that devised the policy and wrote the script for presenting it to the public.
And the afternoon briefing is where that information often begins to emerge.
On a typical day in early spring (March 25), the briefing, called for 2 p.m. and then rescheduled for 2:30 p.m., actually begins at 2:57 p.m. Gibbs’ hands grip the heavy lectern. A smile creases his broad face — the sort of smile that is produced when someone says “remember to smile.”
He delivers his words in a soothing, Southern monotone.
“Part of the strategy is to bore you, to discourage the whole process” of posing tough questions, a veteran wire service reporter mutters quietly as Gibbs plows ahead.
For those sitting beyond the first two rows reserved for television network correspondents, wire service reporters and the three major daily newspapers — The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal — the wait to get called on can seem interminable.
On this day, it is 20 minutes before he finishes with the front row and makes it to the second, and another 18 minutes before he moves back to the third row of correspondents.
The session finally wraps up at 3:48. It is only then that he releases the lectern from his firm grip.
