“You're not going to find very many British newspapers and truth within 25 words of each other” – White House Press Spokesman Robert Gibbs

Philip Stone June 2, 2009 Follow on Twitter

Robert Gibbs description of British newspapers that you’re not going to find many of them “and truth within 25 words of each other” probably had a lot of personalities around the world jumping for joy -- Gibbs saying what for years they wish they had the guts to say for the shoddy treatment many of them have received at the hands of particularly the tabloids -- but should the White House press spokesman really be saying such things?

The White House was angry because  of a Daily Telegraph article that took issue with why the Obama White House backtracked and filed in court to stop publication of new Abu Ghraib pictures that would show more mistreatment by the US military of prisoners in that Iraqi prison. The President decided such publication wouldn’t do the military any good (he is, after all, commander-in-chief), and those new pictures would only add to anti-Americanism around the world.

But The Telegraph is not a tabloid and its story was based on an interview with Major General Antonio Taguba, who oversaw the inquiry into the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal. This was serious journalism – the story American media should have been publishing --  but obviously it hit sensibilities at the White House and Gibbs, in his jocular manner, drew his (and perhaps his boss’) line in the sand.

The British have been suspicious of the Obama White House for its perceived anti-Britishness – when Prime Minister Gordon Brown was the first European government leader to visit the Obama White House there was no formal news conference thereafter and only after much howling by the British did Obama agree to an armchair sit-down with Brown in front of the cameras where just a few questions were permitted. But when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited recently, as other world leaders did before him, there were no formal news conference such as those frequent in the Bush White House so one can’t really look for anti-British sentiment because there was no formal news conference.

And Gibbs caused another British storm this week when asked if President Obama thought that Queen Elizabeth should attend the D-Day ceremonies in France on Saturday and he responded, “He does. We are working with those involved to see if we can make it happen.” That sounds pretty pro-British (after all Michelle did put her arm around the Queen on her Buckingham Palace visit). But the British are saying that Gibbs has struck below the belt again because it was Prime Minister Brown’s responsibility to decide who represents Britain at those ceremonies and he decided he would be top dog and thus no invitation to the Queen. President Sarkozy said it wasn’t France’s fault the Queen wasn’t invited; indeed one French spokesman actually suggested it should be President Obama who issues the invitations because the major part of the ceremony will be held at an American military cemetery in Normandy and the French consider that land to be American. One can only wonder what Helen Mirren would make of all of this -- the compromise now is that Prince Charles will attend (It shouldn’t be forgotten the Queen is the only one in this long list of characters who was “in service” during WWII, so if anybody should be attending it should be her and this is a sickly compromise – Charles was born two years after the war ended!)

The British also believe that Obama is anti-British because,  as James Delingpole of The Telegraph noted in his blog, Obama “has a special loathing for Britain because it roughed up his Kenyan granddad during the Mau Mau insurrection” (The Mau Mau Uprising of 1952-1960 was a brutal insurrection by Kenyan rebels against British colonial rule.) 

Considering Gibbs’ truth insult, the British media has been remarkably mild-mannered on this except for a few media blogs here and there, even though with one broad brush they have all been called liars by the most important press spokesman in the world. Perhaps Gibbs understood the best defense really is a good offense!

But the misjudgment here is that Gibbs chose to damn The Telegraph at a time that it is into its fourth week of daily exclusives about Members of Parliament (MPs)  being economical with the truth in their reporting of expenses. The ongoing scandal has caused the Speaker of the House to resign (he had responsibility over the office that oversaw expense claims) plus many MPs have said they will not be candidates in the next elections that must be called by next May, and the Prime Minister is said to be reshuffling his cabinet with a view to punishing senior members who have not come out of this sparkling clean.

A newspaper has succeeded in tottering a government and forcing many incumbents to already announce they will not run for office again. US papers like The New York Times and The Washington Post must be green with envy at such a story, exclusive for weeks, and yet it is the British Daily Telegraph – the newspaper Gibbs pointed at in particular for his truth and 25 words comment -- that has done such a service for the British people.

And there have been next to no denials, no MP saying The Telegraph has it all wrong – that the truth is 25 words away; some have basically said, “yes we did that but it was allowed in the rules,” but they have already lost in the court of public opinion -- whereas others have run as fast as they could to the tax office to pay capital gains and the like in a blaze of publicity because The Telegraph outed them.

So really Gibbs’ comments coming when they did, aimed at The Telegraph in particular were really misplaced. Of course it’s easy to criticize a media you don’t have to worry much about although Gibbs should not lose sight of how many Americans are reading British newspapers on the Web these days.

Everyone should now be looking  to see what Gibbs says about The New York Times, The Washington Post , or the networks when/if they start to really criticize the Obama Administration (with Brian Williams’ two exclusive White House interviews and his two primetime programs this week does Obama need to worry about NBC anymore?)  

Nile Gardiner, director of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at the very conservative Heritage Foundation, wrote in a Daily Telegraph blog, “Robert Gibbs' completely unwarranted rant against the British press is an absolute disgrace, and the President should disown his views. An unreserved apology by Gibbs is also in order.”

Doubtful that is going to happen, but hopefully this means that at least the gloves are off between the British press and the Obama White House and the Brits will be asking the questions at the briefings and the news conferences (if they ever called upon) that the American media should be asking but, for their apparent still-ongoing Obama love affair, aren’t.

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