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President Barack Obama: Since we're on Iran, I know Nico Pitney is here from the Huffington Post.Baker began his Thursday posting:
Nico Pitney, Huffington Post: Thank you Mr. President.
Obama: Nico, I know that you, and all across the Internet, we've been seeing a lot of reports coming directly out of Iran. I know that there may actually be questions from people in Iran who are communicating through the Internet. Do you have a question?
Pitney: Yes, I did, I wanted to use this opportunity to ask you a question directly from an Iranian. We solicited questions last night from people who are still courageous enough to be communicating online, and one of them wanted to ask you this: Under which conditions would you accept the election of Ahmadinejad? And if you do accept it without any significant changes in the conditions there, isn't that a betrayal of what the demonstrators there are working towards?
Here is the dirty little secret about White House news conferences: The president almost always knows the questions in advance.But the Times has in the past implied the Bush White House was planting questions, during its coverage of the Jeff Gannon controversy in 2005. And while Baker didn't seem 100% comfortable with the ethics of the Pitney situation, he certainly did not call Pitney, who asked Obama a challenging question, "an administration plant."
But here is the rest of that secret: That is not because White House officials are planting questions or reporters are colluding with them.
Comment: While Mr. Sinclair's characterization of Mr. Putin's character may be off, as Putin's actions thus far have been nothing but gentlemanly, his analysis of the economic weapon in Russia's hands is spot on. It's a mark of the blindspot of the 'reality-creating' neocons that they seem to not be taking this into account.
Creating Reality And The "War On Terror" - A 'How To' Guide