By joining CNN as an on-air commentator, former Obama Press Secretary Jay Carney has passed through the revolving door between the Obama administration and the media, but he is still Obama’s man and in an interview with his new employer he noted that the TV networks are to blame for Obama not being allowed to make more TV speeches. It is lain that Carney will continue to be a bind flack for Obama even on CNN.
Carney stepped down from his post as White House press secretary in June and by September it was announced he was joining CNN as a news commentator. But Carney rose up as an Obama flack one more time in a new interview released on the eve of his debut on the cable network.
In the Wednesday interview Carney explained away Obama’s inability to understand the “optics” of the presidency, said he was serious about putting a halt to the terrorism of ISIS, and said that Twitter was a helpful tool for the White House.
Carney claimed that Obama was special because he doesn’t “get” that going golfing minutes after giving a speech on the murder of a journalist by terrorists is a bad idea. “That makes him wholly different. What that means is, he is a different kind of person than the kind of person who normally takes this office,” Carney insisted.
One of the more interesting things he claimed, though, is that the big three TV networks are the reason we don’t see Obama on TV more.
Carney said that Obama would be on TV as often as possible to push his partisan agenda but for the intransigence of those networks that are “not always willing to say yes” to giving the President air time.
Carney revealed that in one case Obama wanted to do a primetime address to push one of his plans but the networks turned him down. This spurred the White House to do a study to see how often presidents have been turned down and Carney hinted that Obama has been turned down more than other presidents.
The former Press Sec also took the opportunity to issue a veiled warning to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Many analysts feel that Hillary is seeking to distance herself from Obama’s failed foreign policy as she prepares the groundwork for a run for president in 2016, but Carney cut that effort short reminding CNN’s audience that Hillary was fully a part of Obama’s foreign policy team.
“She was Secretary of State for President Obama for four years and she understands that record will be part of what she runs on. Her time as Secretary of State is something she should be proud of, and the President’s record on foreign policy is something she is more likely to embrace than anything because she was a big part of it.”
If Hillary tries to run away from Obama’s failed foreign policy, clearly Jay Carney will be there on CNN to remind everyone that she was an important part of that failure and if she tries to criticize Obama he will remind everyone that she was right there by his side for four tumultuous years.
