Reflections From a Murky Pond

Fox News will be moving to the front row of reporters in the White House briefing room. They’ll be taking over the seat vacated by AP who will be taking over the seat the forced retirement of the anti-Semite Helen Thomas emptied.

Press Corps In White House Briefing Room

Many will be tempted to ask if this indicates a thawing of the “relationship” between President Obama and Fox News. Others will choose to see it as President Obama capitulating to Fox News. They would all be wrong since the Obama Regime has little or nothing to do with Fox’s being granted a prime front row seat in the briefing room.

The decision of how the seating would be rearranged in the wake of Helen Thomas’ unlamented departure was solely in the hands of the White House Correspondents Association (WHCA), an organization represents the White House press corps in its dealings with the administration on coverage-related issues and which is made up of reporters and journalists, not necessarily White House flunkies.

The WHCA has a nine-member board of directors, elected annually by correspondents, which addresses access to the POTUS;  press coverage arrangements; reporters’ work space arrangements; logistics and costs for press travel to accompany a president while on the road.

WHCA Officers 2010-2011

• President: David Jackson, USA TODAY
• Vice President: Caren Bohan, Reuters
• Secretary: Steve Scully, C-SPAN
• Treasurer: Doug Mills, New York Times

WHCA Board Members 2010-2011

• Carol Lee, Politico
• Michael Scherer, Time Magazine
• Julie Mason, DC Examiner
• Don Gonyea, NPR
• Ed Henry, CNN

It was the decision of those nine members of WHCA’s Board of Directors to move Fox News to the front row, not that of anyone directly associated with the Obama Regime.

The board of the White House Correspondents Association has agreed, by consensus, to move the Associated Press to the front row, center seat in the James S. Brady Briefing Room.

The board further agreed to move Fox News to the front row seat previously occupied by AP, and relocate NPR into the second row seat previously held by Fox, next to Bloomberg News.

It was a very difficult decision. The board received requests from Bloomberg and NPR in addition to Fox for relocation to the front row and felt all three made compelling cases. But the board ultimately was persuaded by Fox’s length of service and commitment to the White House television pool.

Fox News being moved to the front row of the briefing room might be construed as slap in President Obama’s face and loss in his war against unsympathetic press coverage. If it is such, however, it is likely just a delayed punishment for President Obama’s failed attempt last October to ban Fox News from the White House press “pool” entirely, an attempt that somewhat surprisingly the WHCA refused to allow to succeed.

On the other – and I think more likely – hand, it could just be that the WHCA actually has some basic standards for such things and could maintain the respect of their membership if they sat those standards aside to Fox’s detriment – even if they might otherwise have wanted to do so.

The phrase, “military options have been on the table and remain on the table,” or any variant thereof have long been considered by many as “code speak” for such “options” being in fact the course of action that would be undertaken to resolve a conflict. This is an assumption that is not truly warranted, especially in this modern age of instant information and data dissemination.

So when President Obama’s Chairman of the Joints Chiefs, Admiral Mike Mullen says that the US military has plans for carrying out military operations against Iran if that rogue Muslim state doesn’t desist in its efforts to develop nuclear weapons little, if anything, should be read into the statement.

As reported by AP’s Security desk in Washington, DC:

The U.S. military has a plan to attack Iran, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Sunday, although he thinks a military strike is probably a bad idea.

Not long after Adm. Mike Mullen’s aired on a Sunday talk show, the deputy chief of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard was quoted as saying there would be a strong Iranian response should the U.S. take military action against his country.

Mullen, the highest ranking U.S. military officer, often has warned that a strike on Iran would have serious and unpredictable ripple effects around the Middle East. At the same time, Mullen said the risk of Iran’s developing a nuclear weapon is unacceptable, although he would not say which risk he thinks is worse.

“I think the military options have been on the table and remain on the table,” Mullen said on “Meet the Press” on NBC. “It’s one of the options that the president has. Again, I hope we don’t get to that, but it’s an important option and it’s one that’s well understood.”

Does anyone truly think that President Obama will attack Iran? Even if he were to be presented with incontrovertible facts that Khamenei and Ahmadinejad were developing – or had already developed – nuclear weaponry it is beyond unlikely that he would respond with other than words and, perhaps, a few more ineffectual sanctions requests.

This is just the US Military stating that they have this unlikely contingency covered and have a plan for executing such an order if given by President Obama or the US Congress. It means nothing in the course of events.

H/T to EJCNN for this article.