The Obama Schmoozing of the Press and the Eventual Press War

So having won the election without wooing the press, what is Obama’s new press strategy?

Courtship! On Tuesday night, Obama dined at George F. Will’s house with name-brand conservatives Charles Krauthammer, David Brooks, William Kristol, Paul Gigot, Peggy Noonan, Michael Barone, and Larry Kudlow. The liberal commentariat got their audience the next day, when Obama met with Eugene Robinson, Maureen Dowd, Frank Rich, E.J. Dionne, and others at his transition headquarters. As I write, he’s touring the Washington Post, where he was interviewed by the paper’s editorial board and its White House team.

The new romance goes only so far. He’s still avoided the “traditional” pre-inauguration interview with the New York Times, as Politico‘s Michael Calderone reported yesterday. Calderone catalogs the four substantive interviews Obama has given the Times over the last 18 months or so and notes the welter of miniature press conferences Obama has given to make transition announcements. What seems to irritate the Times the most is the president-elect’s dismissal of the order of things, which mandates a sit-down session with reporters.

Perhaps the Times should count its blessings. As of late, when Obama does speak, as he did on Dec. 7 on Meet the Press, Dec. 28 on 60 Minutes, and Jan. 11 on This Week With George Stephanopoulos, he tends not to say much. The closest Obama came to giving Stephanopoulos any news was when he answered a question about investigating torture and warrantless wiretapping under the Bush administration. Obama said, “We have not made final decisions.”

Yet, the MSM press was clearly accomodating to Obama during the Presidential campaign and never pressed him to answer any hard policy questions. They have continued the policy during the transition.

Obama is lately hailed as being smart and shrewd to preemptively defang the media – both left and right.

But, Obama becomes President next week and will finally have to make some decisions and be held accountable. Decisions that will likely be criticised in the written and spoken word.

The press war is coming.

Related:

The Coming Obama-Press War

Meet the Press