White House press secretary Jay Carney looks to his watch during his daily news briefing at the White House in Washington, Monday, June 10, 2013, to check if President Barack Obama had started his event to announce his nomination Jason Furman, a veteran White House economic official, as chairman of his Council of Economic Advisers in the State Dining Room. Carney discussed the National Security Agency, Patriot Act, and Syria among other topics. Credit: AP
Since holding his first press briefing on Feb. 16, 2011, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney has provided some sort of "I don't know the answer" response to reporters more than 1,900 times and there were at least 9,486 times where he's evaded a question, according to a Yahoo! News analysis.
Here's how the Yahoo! numbers look:
I don’t have the answer (1905 times)I would refer you to someone else (1383 times)
You already know the answer (1125 times)
I’m not going to tell you (939 times)
Not that I know of (927 times)
I don’t want to (588 times)
I’m not sure (549 times)
I won’t speculate (525 times)
No comment (429 times)
I’ll get back to you (387 times)
It’s a good question (381 times)
See yesterday’s non-response (231 times)
The president won’t tell me (117 times)
Yahoo! even provides this really cool interactive tool to further explore "the top 9,486 ways Jay Carney won’t answer your questions":
"The job of a White House press secretary is certainly not to give open, unfettered access of the inner workings of the White House to the press. In large part, it’s messaging," Washington Times reporter David Sherfinski writes. "And, given the White House’s recent woes, sometimes it’s flattery."
“We have a team here that works really hard trying to anticipate the questions you’re going to ask. The problem is, there’s a lot of you and you’re good at your jobs and you’re smart," Carney told reporters during a May 22 briefing, seemingly explaining away his lack of answers. "And we almost invariably do not anticipate every question that you ask. So sometimes we don’t have the answers, and sometimes we need to go back and get them."
Judging from the numbers compiled by Yahoo! News, more than "sometimes" he has had to "go back and get" the answers.
(H/T: Fox Nation)
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