Without his Teleprompter, BHO Ditches the WH Press Corps.

We're big fans of Barack Obama's Teleprompter.

In fact, were it not for TOTUS, the news coming out of of this White House might be viewed as mere propaganda if left only to people like Anita Dunn, Patrick Gaspard, or David Axelrod (et al.).

However, TOTUS brings so much balance and levity to the news coming from the White House that we just couldn't imagine life without it.

Well, apparently the President feels much the same as we do. He has a hard time working without TOTUS too. So much so, apparently, that BHO has been ditching the White House press corp of late.

It's been 19 weeks, according to the Washington Times, since BHO has had a press conference (you know, where POTUS-friendly reporters get to ask planted questions so POTUS can appear to be answering regally and...spontaneously--without TOTUS).

The president, whose job-approval ratings have been on a steady slide, hasn't held a formal news conference in 19 weeks, since July 22. That one ended badly, when Mr. Obama waded into a racial controversy by saying a white police officer "acted stupidly" when he arrested a black Harvard professor.

"It can't be a total coincidence that the last time he faced the press corps, we ended with beers in the Rose Garden with Henry Louis Gates and James Crowley, when the focus was supposed to be health care," said Julie Mason, a White House reporter for the Washington Examiner who also covered the Bush administration for the Houston Chronicle.

"It does seem like they are responding to the overexposure argument and trying to exert more control over his appearances," she said.

Veteran White House reporters have been grumbling about the lack of access to the president, who as a candidate vowed an unprecedented level of transparency. [Emphasis added.]

As the Ditherer-in-Chief preps for his big focus-group-tested speech on Afghanistan tonight, it appears the only thing transparent coming from this White House is Barack Obama's Teleprompter.

And, for its level of transparency, we are great admirers of TOTUS.

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