7/18 Daily Press Briefing by Scott McClellan

This is very interesting. On Friday past, McClellan did not host the press gaggle aboard Air Force One. I guess it is called a gaggle when the president and the trailing press are on the road. Trent Duffy hosted the gaggle. Only 1 (one, One, ONE) question concerning Karl Rove was asked. Only one. This is a pretty small snapshot but it may indicate that the relationship between McClellan and the White House Press Corps is damaged beyond repair. Look what happened on Monday:

McClellan opened the Daily Press Briefing with an update on the Supreme Court vacancy. He didn't waste time with any other news from the Oval Office and here is why. These are the questions asked by the reporters in the order in which they were asked.

Karl Rove: first 18 consecutive questions
Indian Prime Minister's meeting with Bush: 1 question
Karl Rove: 3 questions
Contraception vs Abstinence: 1 question
Karl Rove: 8 questions
North Korea: 1 question
India: 1 question
Karl Rove: 1 question
Terrorism/GWoT: 1 question

Ok, let's analyze this a bit. There were roughly 35 questions asked. Here is the breakdown of questions assigned to what should be the hot button issues of the day.

Terrorism/GWoT
Our troops in Iraq
Supreme Court justices
G8 / African hunger/debt
HIV/AIDS
Social Security
Oil prices
Nuclear proliferation in Iran and Korea
A bloated, corrupt, inefficient United Nations
Economy
African Americans
Indian Prime Minister

Here are the questions pertaining to each of those subjects and the subjects actually of interest to the reporters:

Karl Rove: 30 questions - 86%
Indian Prime Minister: 2 questions - 6%
Terrorism/GWot: 1 question - 3%
North Korea: 1 question - 3%
Contraception vs Abstinence: 1 question - 3%
Our troops in Iraq: 0 questions - 0%
Supreme Court justices: 0 questions - 0%
G8 / African hunger/debt: 0 questions - 0%
HIV/AIDS: 0 questions - 0%
Social Security: 0 questions - 0%
Oil prices: 0 questions - 0%
A bloated, corrupt, inefficient United Nations: 0 questions - 0%
Economy: 0 questions - 0%
African Americans: 0 questions - 0%

Obviously the reporters had rested up on Friday and during the weekend and came at McClellan with 86% of their questions concerning Karl Rove, a new record. Can they hit 100% tomorrow? Yes, but only if the few foreign reporters aren't allowed to ask any pertinent questions about truly newsworthy events.

Tags: Bush politics Rove Plame leak press MSM reporter Press Briefing Scott McClellan