Love the Buffy reference in the title. I don't think you can call Chris Matthews "conservative," although he's not nearly as "liberal" as the right-wingers claim. He's a pretty middle-of-the-road, all-purpose buffoon.

What they want is the President making weird laughs and calling reporters nicknames, like "Stretch."

Also, when your Vice President does not shoot a man in the face, it can be boring.

I wasn't the least bit bored. I guess I'm still a little bit in awe that we have a president that knows how to speak the local tongue and, you know, answer questions an' stuff.

This just proves that information (as opposed to opinion) is boring to Republicans. Completely explains their policy deficit disorder, doesn't it?

Cable "news" is an intellectual sinkhole.

Steve, I think you're missing the IMPORTANT stuff.

Obama kowtows to the King of Saudi Arabia! Obama weakens America by shaking hands with Hugo Chavez! Obama gives an iPod to the Queen of England! Michelle wears a sleeveless dress! Millions Teabag!

Now THAT'S news!

I missed last night's news conference, but remembering the previous ones, I do think his answers go on too long sometimes, and tend to the professorial, as if he needs to tell everything he knows about a subject. I wonder how much of that a general audience will find helpful, as opposed to wonks like us who frequent sites like this one.

On the other hand, it beats the last 8 years' news conferences all hollow, when W would deign to hold one.

I personally don't watch press conferences because I find them boring and don't think much new info comes from them. But if I was being paid to watch it, I'd do a good job of it and would NEVER criticize them as boring, as that's just stupid. Not everything is supposed to be exciting.

I would like for Obama to have back-up dancers.

I don't think you can call Chris Matthews "conservative,

Matthews voted for Bush at least once, if not twice. He said last night he looks for "moderate Republicans" to vote for, you know for balance. And it sounds like he got the same talking points memo these others got. If we don't call him "conservative", can we at least call him a 20 percenter?

These guys spent 8 years panty-sniffing, then another 8 years trying to turn an anti-intellectual snot into Winston Churchill. I can well imagine that the attention demands that Obama makes on them are a stretch for their skill set.

Eeyore: You forgot TelePrompter!!1!

Here we are now
Entertain us
I feel stupid and contagious
Here we are now
Entertain us

Competance is boring.

Hear, hear! Thanks for saying this! There are some on the left blogosphere who are saying this as well (that he is boring)!

And I too have two words for them: grow up.

Especially considering the serious, serious crises we are experiencing, as President Obama himself said, it is really surprising that most of the folks in the arena still have these frivolous, unserious attitudes.

Psych 101: Boredom is repressed hostility. See "Teenager, Petulant".

I agree 100 percent that it's the job of professional analysts and commentators to find material from a press conference and make their analysis and commentary interesting - not the other way around. But if that's the worse criticisms they can come up with, then I'm not complaining.

The problem is that news (about real life) has been confused with entertainment especially on TV, and pundits now expect to be entertained, not informed, by real life. It's a trend in degrading facts that's increasingly the case as news has been bought, literally, by entertainment corporations. No bread, all circus. I suspect that real people are more interested in facts than the pundits these days, and this kind of idiotic sniveling by Tweetie Bird and even less credible commentators will not matter.

too late to grow up...

Note to conservative media personalities: eat shit and die.

I can understand how people with no interest in policy, intellectual thought, and thorough and thoughtful responses could find Obama's pressers boring.

Competence is a drag to people who have none.

.

When I used to live overseas I would tell my baffled non-U.S. friends that to understand American politics you have to understand American high schools and their ecosystems of jocks, bullies, geeks and so on. Of course I was not being fair to high schoolers - the junior high analogy is much more appropriate. I'm sure 82.7% of my daughter's high school senior friends could have provided more insightful and nuanced coverage of last night's conference than that dense amalgam of stunning stupidity that passes for the mainstream political punditry.

You have to admit, a press conference by Barack Obama isn't nearly as entertaining as one by, say, Michele Bachmann or Sarah Palin.

Maybe Obama should have someone slaughter a turkey behind him while he's demonstrating his understanding of complicated, but not exactly pulse-pounding, subjects.

Remember, they all said the same things about Clinton's SOTU speeches--too long, too boring.
The public disagreed and gave him high marks. Also similar to the way the MSM judged the last debates--their "analysis" was completely out of whack with how the unwashed masses judged them.

"I wasn't the least bit bored. I guess I'm still a little bit in awe that we have a president that knows how to speak the local tongue and, you know, answer questions an' stuff."
Posted by: bilder on April 30, 2009

seconded. Not only was I not bored, I enjoy hearing him each and every time.

Bat of Moon:
"I do think his answers go on too long sometimes, and tend to the professorial, as if he needs to tell everything he knows about a subject. I wonder how much of that a general audience will find helpful....",

I don't think Bat of Moon is correct. I suspect Obama knows a lot more about each subject than he says. Instead of giving quickie answers that might be meaningful only to those already conversant with the subject, he puts the issue
in context so that the average citizen learns some factual background and context. Obama gives everyone the opportunity to be informed as he goes along.
This is a serious adult, not someone playing games with the press corps.

At this point, pretty much every commentator has become a theater critic. They evaluate (political) performances for quality ("scintillating! a triumph!" "dreadful! a fiasco!"). Because the alternative is, you know, _analysis_. Snore.

All those mentioned are partisan opinionators. There's no journalism involved.They do not survive by reporting the facts as facts are of little interest or importance to them.

who cares what karl rove thinks? the man is a criminal. ed rollins said his opening statement was perfect but then he says it was a little dull. if it was perfect, how could it be dull?

as for twits like chris matthews, they look at politics as primarily about entertainment, not about governing. governing is boring.

Boring in the sense we weren't hanging on the edge of our chairs awaiting the next jaw-dropping, mangled thought coming from our president?

Ok, then. It was boring.

I'm really liking boring.

What do these guys want? A laser-light show? Hand puppets? Back-up dancers?

Well, yes. That's a good start. But this is part of a more global thing, something that goes beyond the obvious shallowness of cable news. Obama is challenging all of America to think again. None of this "I listen to my gut" nonsense of the last eight years. Think. Here's the problem, the facts, the options, and what we're gonna do.

It's going to take a while. Dogs don't get housebroken in a day. Yes, of course the people who rely on cheap soundbites and gags are going to be upset. He's making their job more difficult.

"This is a serious adult, not someone playing games with the press corps." -Johnny Canuck

Precisely.

So I suppose Karl Rove thinks that George W. Bush provided the sterling example of how to conduct an entertaining press conference.

REN is right. They don't honestly think it's boring. They want their viewers to think it's boring, so audiences will be more likely to accept the secondhand accounts of Obama's positions and intentions from the punditocrats, without the hazard of the President's actual words.

13 year olds tend to have short attention spans [...] -- Steve Benen

Depends on the 13yr old. Where I grew up, a *7*yr old (our first grade) was expected to sit through a 45minute lesson without disrupting it and be able to regurgitate the content next week. By the time we were 13 -- the last year of primary school -- we were supposed to be fairly responsible semi-adults during class. The farting contests belonged in the 10minute breaks between classes. So, to me, these guys sound like they're all a bit challenged, intellectually.

maybe we can have keith olbermann do tongue depressor puppet theater to entertain the fox crowd. it was quite entertaining when michael jackson was on trial. the repubs are at least as strange and peverse as michael jackson, if only in different ways.

This 'boring' is from the sound-bite media.

They've had 8 years of and Administration that operated via sound bites, whom they never questioned.

They just want their sound bites back, because that's what sells. They just haven't yet (or may never) readjusted to the New Sheriff In Town, one who knows what he's talking about, as opposed to playing at it and trying for 'atta boys' from the media, who were all to happy to bestow it.

Why do Karl Rove, Chris Matthews, Beck, Hannity, and other TV personalities and pundits complain that President Obama's press conferences are boring? Because they have become so used to the circus, carnival, "side show" atmosphere of their own programs. Without the theatrics, exaggeration, mocking laughs, bloviating, raving, ranting, screaming and shouting, they fail to recognize straight questions and answers as news worthy. Most of these guys view news as entertainment.

The Republican pundits want to talk people into not watching future press conferences. They really want people to believe he is boring. Matthews' motivation is a mystery to me. But then again I don't understand much of what Joe Biden says in public.

My wife and I watched last night. We didn't find the performance "boring." We found it refreshing. After all here is a man who exudes confidence and competence. I think he is doing a great job with the press conferences.

Pundits: "More 'bring it on', less fag talk."

Bored? They're not bored, they're confused. All those big words, those carefully crafted sentences, the lack of colorful allegories. It just hurts their itty bitty brains.

Sure, he should have announced an unjustified invasion or made a play for our sympathy by explaining how hard he had to think to justify some conclusion that he'd already jumped to. He could have woken us up by saying something so mangled or so jaw-droppingly stupid that we all start scratching our heads and questioning our sanity. At the very least he could have provided a little suspense by trying to make us guess which bit of the constitution he was going to trash next. The man didn't even tell us to go shopping. Besides which, how can you have a decent drinking game with a president who won't say "nukular"? It was all just facts and seriousness. You'd think there was like a crisis going on or something.
(/snark)

"Note to conservative media personalities: grow up"
Steve, that's got to be the funniest thing you've written in quite some time.

Actually I do understand where Matthews is coming from. The power of the pundit is derived from explaining what some politician said and why. If you listen to the President at a news conference, he is so articulate and thoughtful, there is very little for the professional pundit like Matthews to explain.

The same thought applies to the Fox fools, except on steroids. The last remaining hope of the Fox types is to keep Obama from the average viewer. He is a master of communication and once people are exposed to him live they are not as likely to realize that Karl Rove et al are selling an alternate reality that doesn't really have anything to do with anything in the world where nearly all of us live.

I think the thing that most distresses our childish pundits is that after Obama is done answering a question, there is often no wiggle room in his answer for them to editorialize about "what it means" or allows them any space to interject their own opinions. That is what bothers them. The cannot postulate and blather on among themselves, Dowd-like, about innocuous and childlike minutiae from some statement the President gives. This immature and stunted attitude is what fascinates them and drives their views. They are given serious answers, well thought out, that leave very little open to interpretation. To them, that is boring. They don't have the skills or the mental acuity to discuss what Obama actually says, they want to put their words into his mouth to set the narrative around what interests them. Namely silly and simplistic notions based more on practicing infotainment that actually being informative.

The fact that he gives them no opportunity to indulge their inflated sense of self importance leaves them feeling inferior and less powerful. They are intimidated so they feel compelled to find any way possible to try and minimize or marginalize what the President says.

In short, they know Obama is much, much smarter than any of them. And they don't like that one bit.

If Rove, Rollins & Co could attack on substance, they wouldn't hesitate for a second do so.

The fact that they have to go for some wishy-washy style drivel is an implicit admission how much the Republicans are being outclassed and out-maneuvered by Obama.

This is the Dowdification of American commentary. This adolescent whining that discussion of policy is "boring" was used effectively against both Michael Dukakis and Al Gore. Listening to serious talk about global warming wasn't fun. Making fun of Gore for things he hadn't actually said, based on second-hand quotes out of context, was much more entertaining. A pundit class that needed to be entertained like the kids in "The Cat in the Hat" gave us the ultimate Cat in the Hat presidency with George Bush.

"Have no fear, said the cat
I will not let you fall
I will hold you up high
as I stand on the ball!"

"What do these guys want? A laser-light show? Hand puppets? Back-up dancers?"

Nah.

They want TAX CUTS FOR THE RICH & CORPORATE.

I thought I would be the only person who got the Evil Willow reference. I hate to mingle a vision of Alyson Hannigan and Karl Rove though...

The conservative pundits no more find it boring than they believe any of the other crap they spew. They are too clever for that. They are playing to their base. The same intellectually lazy and ignorant people who fall under the conservative wurlitzer's spell do not have the attention span to follow logical, thought out arguments. They think in symbols. Karl Rove tried to explain this to us, we weren't listening to him. So Rove and the others are saying to the vast unwashed convervative masses huddled with their guns and racist fears, "I am one of you. I find this fact-based stuff boring" .

Do I think we need to pamper these same idiots? I think we try to educate those who are willing and capable but for the rest of them - fuck 'em.

They just don't understand any human being who can converse in the English language, politely and civilised, using correct grammar and a sense of humor beyond frat boy pranks.

Weren't all those guys ripping him when he chuckled in an interview? Like he wasn't being serious enough.

It's almost like they are looking for any possible way to paint him in a bad light. Nah, that can't be it.

Perhaps Obama should have had a town hall style rally and whipped the people into a frenzy - getting them to shout 'kill them'(the repubs) as Sarah Palin did with the brain dead republicans.I was never so shocked in my life to hear a rally where they were calling for someone to be killed. Republicans are neither human, christian, civilized or even deserving to be part of the human race.

I think the thing that most distresses our childish pundits is that after Obama is done answering a question, there is often no wiggle room in his answer for them to editorialize about "what it means" or allows them any space to interject their own opinions.

I think you're exactly right. He knows how to cut out the middleman and speak directly and effectively to the public, and they fear and resent that. They know it threatens to make them superflous.

This adolescent whining that discussion of policy is "boring" was used effectively against both Michael Dukakis and Al Gore.

That no longer works, though, when people are worried and distressed and badly WANT to have somebody with a clue in charge of the country.

Maybe next time there is a press conference, Obama can let Bo loose to chew on the reporters' shoes. That should liven things up a bit. I'm sure the pundits would find that amusing.

I'm a little surprised. He talked so much that the cable news people should have hours and hours of material: all the close-parsing, insider baseball, horse-race stuff they want was in there, if they just listened for it.

Sure, he's careful, but he's also laying down a track record of expectations and plans that they should be having a field day with.

The problem, as others have pointed out, is that you have to work pretty hard to distort what he's said -- he's careful enough with context that it's difficult to find something that, even out of context, the audience would find titillating. On the other hand, the audience seems to like Obama just fine....

Of course Republicans are going to say it was "boring." They don't want anyone else to watch.

Well thank god American Idol was on AFTER the press conference....Anyway I used to watch GWB on the teevee just to be horrified. He always kept me on the edge of my seat. You never knew what kind of crap he would come up with. Maybe he would call a fat guy "Tiny" or a crippled guy "Gimpy" or stand there stuplified or make up a new word or mispronunciation. You just never knew. Just like watching NASCAR, it was all about the death-defying crashes, or the possibility thereof. It was much more interesting than long thoughtful grammaticaly correct answers demonstrating an in-depth understanding of issues. The same reason Rush is more interesting than NPR.

Obama can let Bo loose to chew on the reporters' shoes.

Chew? I suppose that's one of only a small number of possible outcomes.
I can think of a couple that wouldn't be boring.

I find it amusing that Rove would be able to consider anyone boring as he has the personality of an egg. But for several talking heads to make this an issue is an embarrassment to the networks. Grow up.

my dear husband and I were watching last night and I told him "the commentocracy calls him boring." But we agreed he's great and I think he knows that for a significant portion of the audience it's a good idea to be as clear as possible, explicit, even repetitive -- because unlike the pundits, what he's talking about IS news to the folks who tuned not even knowing he was going to be on...

I listened to the entire press conference on the radio.

While the questions from the press were, to be charitable, not very astute or intelligent, Obama's responses were excellent. It was not at all "boring".

Which is exactly why the bought-and-paid-for corporate shills of the corporate-owned media -- both "mainstream" and "conservative" -- are all, in scripted, teleprompted lockstep, declaring it "boring".

Because their corporate mission remains, as it has been for the first 100 days, to undermine public support for and confidence in Obama.

They don't want the American people to listen to what this man has to say. They are, in fact, terrified of that.

I think the conservative white folks were expecting Obama to do a tap dance for them, or maybe eat some watermelon or sing a chorus of "Ol' Man River."

It should be obvious why they find it boring...they can't find good enough reasons to attack it in other ways. They watch, looking only for areas they might criticize. Since these people have no new policies or ideas all they can do and all they are doing is demean and block the president in any and every way possible.

These insightful goobers have turned news into "infotainment" for ratings...which is exactly what they would do with the WH if they controlled it. Press conferences would look like the movie "Idiocracy" and the president would be the national 'smack down' wrestling champ.

News is news and one becomes involved to the extent of their interest. Obama is unique in today's world in actually trying to explain and answer questions on the issues. Chris Mathews has attention deficit disorder...one only needs to watch his show once to see that as he cuts off answers and changes subjects in the middle of responses. "What about sending more soldiers to Afghanistan this...did you see the tennis shoes on the VP yesterday. I was gonna run for office but...hey, my dad was a soldier...he never wore sneakers but then he didn't run for office either"-Mathews example.

These critics find more than a sound byte on any issue bor-ing. Hopefully Obama will ignore these detractors and continue doing what is making him so popular...not listening to them.

They are not bored, they are confused. Obama used a lot of big words (more than two syllables) showed a genuine command of details and provided nuanced answers to complex questions. Such things require people to use their brains. Something the Washington press corps is in very short supply of.

They are like any group of intellectually lazy people forced to listen to an actually intelligent conversation. They want flash, not substance.

Hence they were 'bored'.

If the worst thing they can say about Obama is that he gives boring press conferences (an opinion which I do not share), then Obama must be kicking a tremendous amount of ass.

All the media outlets are owned by giant entertainment conglomerates who lose a TON of money when Obama has a press conference in primetime. So all the good lickspittles have to say the press conferences are boring, so maybe Obama will stop having them (or at least having them at night). Then we'll be entertained low-information consumers. Just like they like us.

"...explains their policy deficit disorder, doesn't it?"
Posted by: jen f on April 30, 2009 at 1:57 PM

Good one jen f. I will use that. Mix "Policy Deficit Disorder" with "Attention Deficit Disorder" and you have congressional republicans.

PDD + ADD = GOP

emjayay@3.01p - yeah, you're so right about Bush's pressers. I never missed one unless it was absolutely unavoidable for the sheer entertainment factor!

While the questions from the press were, to be charitable, not very astute or intelligent, Obama's responses were excellent.

Maybe if the press was actually capable of asking better questions and also understanding reasonably intelligent answers, they wouldn't find it so boring. Maybe they're just in the wrong profession.

the least they could do is to pretend they are not bored

it is all a piece with pretending to cover policy

Future Faux News headline: Torture Hearings = Booooooring.

Someone please send these people a tape of PBS or BBC World that they can study. And one of Shrub's news conferences so they can remember how awful they were. Since CNN fired or hid all their experienced people in the back room, they look like Entertainment Tonight gone bad. I'd be ashamed to beam this noxious fluff around the world as representative of my country's news coverage.

"stand there stuplified or make up a new word or mispronunciation."
Posted by: emjayay on April 30, 2009

Is "stuplified" a genuine GWBushism?

This is certainly an area where Obama is inferior to GWB: adding words to the english language.

I will never forget "misunderestimate".

Let's see. During the campaign, the GOPers called Obama and extremist black Christian, a Muslim terrorist born in Kenya, and a Communist. Never mind that generally one cannot be any two of these at once. After he was inaugurated and the birth certififcate nonsense faded, they shifted to calling him a Communist and a Fascist in alternate weeks. Never mind that that these two categories are generally mutually exclusive, also. Now that Obama's unruffled pragmatic approach to 7-8 simultaneous crises seems to be producing some results (short term at least) and his support is running > 60%, all they can come up with is "boring." In the last month, the market has been tanking, pirates made it to the nightly news, the gov't is struggling to help banks and Detroit in a sea of uncertainty and opposition, and the situation in Iraq and Aghanistan is unfolding in new ways, some scary, and the Prez comes across tranquilly enough to bore the wingnuts who hate him say they're bored. My take is that O'S is getting up to speed, and the GOPers are out of ammo.

They are bored because Obama is talking about the stuff of governing, which isn't interesting to them.

This is just the right's attempt to get their audience (and as many in the public) to stop paying attention to what's going on at these events.

The problem is that people's lives have been so messed up by the right, that will likely ignore what these folks have to say.

More and more, corporate media becomes increasingly irrelevant as people discover they can get the facts that impact their lives from a more accurate source, namely President Obama.

Back up dancers would be pretty cool, although then we'd have to put up with more than conversations about the prez's "swagga."

What do these guys want? A laser-light show? Hand puppets? Back-up dancers?

I think President Obama's staff should, right before the next presser starts, hand out to these "reporters" little brightly-colored kiddie boxes (like Happy Meals) with a toy, some crayons, maybe a Twinkie inside so they'll all feel special and have something to do when Obama starts talking grown-up talk.

So are you saying that Rove, Rollins, Matthews, and Carlson, to name a few, were long ago replaced by their evil vampire twins? That would sure explain a lot.

(Love finding BtVS references in political blogs).

Maybe Obama’s news conferences are “boring� because the idiot pundits and infotainers don’t have the anticipation of some mind-numbing idiotic twisted expression that shocks your intelligence by its blunt stoopidity and upside-downistic unreality rolling off his tongue. Aaahhh... for the good ole days of the idiot boy king, when every contorted statement, disaggregated thought, blaring ignorance, and missmithed word was an adventure and titillation for the immature suckass dolts club. Mathews and the boyz and gurlz secret decoder rings were always in high blazing twitter when the bush-monster spewed on them the raw meat of his horrific evil, maleficent ignorance and tortuous illogic. Their throbbing anticipation and lust for bush’s juice, brutally emasculated by Obama’s sanity – it must be wracking the lot of political infortainer flotsam with withdrawl worthy of the worst herion addict.

Lie, maybe?
Dodge questions?

Are those exciting/entertaining? Those were the key features from Bush press conferences that apparently were relative thrill rides to Obama's snorefests.

And yet if he laughs or makes light of a subject, they are all over him for not being serious. Truly ridiculous.

Hey, Press, GET OVER YOURSELVES!