It's ironic that the White House press corps are up in arms about a high school student asking a question of Jay Carney in the briefing room. The culture of the White House press corps is about as close to high school as you're going to find, and when it comes to juvenile questions . . . well, come to think of it, maybe that was the issue.
We ask the juvenile questions around here!
Actually, they engage in the juvenile boot-licking, but let's not quibble over definitions. Mediaite reports what happened when Daily Caller intern Gabe Finger, a 16-year-old high school junior, asked Carney whether the administration would consider providing any security for George Zimmerman and his family given the atmosphere surrounding his acquital, which includes members of the media openly wishing "no peace" and a lifetime of hell on him.
Carney made no such commitment, explained that Obama has echoed the Martin family's call for calm, blah blah blah, prompting Finger to follow up:
"So they're on their own?"
Carney didn't like that one bit, and he shot back, "You can editorialize all you want, and I'm sure that you will, but that is a ridiculous statement."
It didn't take long for the establishment White House press corps to take to Twitter trashing the kid, as Mediaite demonstrates by displaying some of the meanest and most mocking tweets. It all started, as you might expect, with a sneering piece by Politico, which might have its knickers in a twist because the Daily Caller just blew by it in web traffic.
So leaving aside his age or the fact that he works for Tucker Carlson, whom the mainstream media can't stand, was Finger's question ridiculous? You could certainly make the case that the federal government can't be responsible for providing security to everyone who might face a threat, and I think Carney would have been on solid ground to say as much in a respectful way. But by losing his cool as he did in responding to the followup, Carney demonstrated his basic contempt for the idea that he has to answer such questions, especially from some conservative web site. And I'm sure Carney knows enough about how the White House press corps operates that he was pretty confident the journos would jump on the kid rather than jumping on him.
That said, it was certainly a reasonable question, and probably one the lamestreamers themselves should have asked. I guess they see it as ridiculous because they've invested so much in the narrative of George Zimmerman as a Ku Klux Klan grand wizard, they can hardly spend a moment exploring any concern for the man's safety.
I suppose it's not the most important thing in the big scheme of things, but it does demonstrate (as if we needed any more demonstration) that the people upon whom we rely for news from the White House are every bit as juvenile - and I would say a lot meaner - than this high school junior who actually scored a pretty nice coup getting to ask a question a White House press briefing. I wonder if this experience makes him less interested in becoming a part of what surrounded him yesterday.
Would you want to work with jerks like that every day?
