White House on Michael Jackson

Before I get to Robert Gibbs’ statement on the death of Michael Jackson, here’s my personal favorite performance:

MJ superfan Jake Tapper broached the subject first, and Gibbs related some of the President’s thoughts:

New Wrinkle in Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell Fight: Just Don’t Ask About the Told

This week, a new strategy emerged in the effort to keep brave and qualified gay soldiers in the military, despite the still-in-effect-for-the-foreseeable-future “Don’t ask/Don’t tell” policy.  From Advocate.com’s Kerry Eleveld:

Seventy-seven Congressional members led by Democratic Representative Alcee Hastings of Florida sent a letter to President Barack Obama Monday urging him to take immediate action to stop the investigations of “don’t ask, don’t tell” violations. The letter does not call for an executive order halting discharges but rather a change in how the policy is implemented within the Department of Defense.

“It is a presidential moratorium, it is a significant presidential action, but it’s not an executive order,” said Christopher Neff, political director at the Palm Center, a research institute at University of California, Santa Barbara. “They basically want the military to disregard anyone who ‘tells’ [of someone’s sexuality] as long as there isn’t a [Uniform Code of Military Justice] violation or something criminal.”

Kerry asked Robert Gibbs about it at yesterday’s briefing, explaining it well in the process:

Friday’s White House Press Briefing

The subjects of the day were Iran and Michael Jackson.  Transcript after the jump.

President Obama Demands Ahmadinejad Apologize to His People…Sort Of

At a press conference earlier today, President Obama was asked, by the New York Times’ Jeff Zeleny, if he thought Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad owed him an apology for comparing him to George W. Bush.  The President’s answer seemed to indicate that he thought Ahmadinejad ought to think about apologizing to his own people.  I asked Robert Gibbs to clarify the President’s statement at today’s White House Press Briefing:

TC: (Jeff) asked if the President felt that President Ahmadinejad owed him an apology for comparing him to President Bush, and in his reply, the President all but — he stopped just short of saying that he thought that President Ahmadinejad owed an apology to his people. He didn’t quite say that, but would you — do you think that’s what he was saying?

MR. GIBBS: I’d simply point you to what he said. I think he was fairly clear on what he meant and who it was directed to.

That sounds like a “yes” to me, but you be the judge.  Here’s what the President said:

In any case, it was a good answer to the kind of question that doesn’t usually get one.  The President’s obviously not going to engage in verbal volleyball with Ahmadinejad, but he managed to put the gossipy question into a weightier context.