the kicker

Gibbs: "I Seem to Have Forgotten My Amex"

July 2, 2009

Guess what came up at today’s White House press briefing?

Here’s a clue: “Was anyone from the White House invited to attend these Washington Post salons that were reported this morning,” a reporter asked an obviously-prepared-for-the-question Robert Gibbs–after the crowd got a hearty chuckle out of the suggestion that a reporter would actually ask a question about healthcare–“and what is the White House’s official policy on members of the administration doing things like this, regardless of who sponsors them?”

“I don’t know if anybody here was,” Gibbs replied. “I think some people in the administration, writ large, may have been invited. I do not believe, based on what I’ve been able to check, that anybody has accepted the invitations.”

But. Gibbs continued by saying that White House counsel would review any such invitations–and that they “would likely exceed” what the administration would consider appropriate.

[h/t, Michael Calderone]

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Megan Garber is an assistant editor at the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University. She was formerly a CJR staff writer.