True to form as he prepares to wind up his stint as presidential spokesman, Robert Gibbs today left unanswered, and unasked, questions from over 30 White House correspondents at the daily news briefing – calling on just 20 of the 51 reporters present.
WND’s Les Kinsolving, the second-most senior member of the White House press corps, had prepared to ask Gibbs, who announced Jan. 5 he would step down soon, about the salary of his successor, in light of his own pay.
The questions Kinsolving had prepared to ask was, “Do you have any idea just when the president will announce who will be your successor; and will he or she receive more than what the president reportedly described as your ‘relatively modest pay’ of $172,000 a year?”
Gibbs reportedly is scheduled to step down some time after President Obama’s State of the Union address scheduled for Jan. 25.
The other prepared question related to a photograph in the Columbia, S.C., daily newspaper The State. The photograph showed an NAACP rally in Columbia on Martin Luther King Day. In the photo, there is a statue of President George Washington around which there has been constructed a wooden fence.
WND found that the “looming” statue was likely deemed a distraction to the rally and that its obstruction was not unusual.
Meanwhile, in Lafayette Square across from the White House today there were several hundred Chinese-Americans lined up wearing blue vests, carry signs and chanting on behalf of the cause of freeing Tibet.
On Capitol Hill, Republican Reps. Chris Smith of New Jersey and Frank Wolf of Virginia held a news conference with several activists calling for greater freedom in China.
At the noon White House briefing, a number of questions dealt with China and the late afternoon arrival of Chinese President Hu Jintao, but none of the answers were indicative of any changes in Obama relations with Beijing.
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