During his press conference today, in response to a question about consultations with “living” Presidents, President-elect Barack Obama made a passing comment that mentioned Nancy Reagan, who talked to astrologers. You can watch it here.
Today, there are many Democrats, Republicans, and Independents who are not hardcore partisans looking to leap at any opportunity to express outrage, who feel it’s time to get down to serious business. But some have reacted to Obama’s remark in a way that is both predictable and unbelievable, given the issues now facing the country. I just got several emails, sending me the link to the post noted above, commenting how outrageous, insulting, and infantile they thought Obama’s remark was. To those outraged, who think this remark was the main one worthy of discussion from Obama’s first press conference: Kindly see the headline above.
UPDATE: Apparently a full-fledged controversy was brewing over this so Obama has now apologized for his “careless” remark.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.