Outgoing White House Press Secretary Jay Carney has just about the best response possible to criticism from Dick Cheney on Obama's handling of Iraq.

Courtesy of Mediaite:

During his final briefing on Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney got in a jab at Dick Cheney after the former vice president wrote in the Wall Street Journal that “rarely has a U.S. president been so wrong about so much at the expense of so many” with regards to Iraq and Middle East policy. 

“Which president was he talking about?” Carney zinged as ABC reporter Jon Karl read off the quote, prompting laughter from the packed room. “I believe he was talking about President Obama,” Karl joked back. 

 Carney ultimately settled with this response: “He’s entitled to his opinion.”

The idea that anybody should seriously listen to anything Cheney has to say about Iraq is being universally dismissed. 

From the New York Times: 

This, from the man who helped lead us into this trumped-up war, searching for nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, a war in which some 4,500 members of the American military were killed, many thousands more injured, and that is running a tab of trillions of dollars.

To the Washington Post:  

When it comes to being wrong about Iraq, Dick Cheney has been in a class by himself. It was Cheney who said, “Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us.” 

It was Cheney who said: “it’s been pretty well confirmed” that 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta “did go to Prague and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service.” 

It was Cheney who said: “we do know, with absolute certainty, that [Saddam Hussein] is using his procurement system to acquire the equipment he needs in order to enrich uranium to build a nuclear weapon” 

It was Cheney who said in 2005: “I think they’re in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency.” 

All those things, and many more, were false. There is not a single person in America — not Bill Kristol, not Paul Wolfowitz, not Don Rumsfeld, no pundit, not even President Bush himself — who has been more wrong and more shamelessly dishonest on the topic of Iraq than Dick Cheney.

And even, believe it or not, over at Fox News:

 “In your op-ed [in the Wall Street Journal], you write as follows: ‘Rarely has a U.S. president been so wrong about so much at the expense of so many,” Kelly said on her show “The Kelly File.” “But time and time again, history has proven that you got it wrong as well sir.” 

And while all of that is good, it is really not good enough. 

Good enough would be seeing Dick Cheney giving interviews from behind bars.

Good enough would be seeing the entire Bush Administration prosecuted for war crimes.

Good enough would be the Republican party admitting publicly that they helped lie a nation into war and lose their standing as a political party of worth in this country.

It would not bring back the thousands of dead American soldiers, nor the hundreds of thousands dead Iraqis, but at least it might do something to keep such a travesty from ever happening again.

Fox News White House correspondent storms out because Jay Carney ignored him and hurt his widdle feelings. Update!

Courtesy of HuffPo:  

Fox News correspondent Ed Henry walked out of a White House press briefing after being repeatedly ignored by spokesman Jay Carney on Friday. Henry attempted to ask Carney a question twice, but Carney called on other people instead. 

After the first time, Henry could be seen shaking his head and muttering something to colleague Major Garrett. After the second time, Henry angrily got up and left the room. The briefing continued without him.

You can see the head shake at the 4 sec mark, the slow burn at the 2 minute mark, and the storm out at the 3:20 mark. Such a professional.

Personally I don't think that the President or his spokespeople should EVER call on any Fox News reporters. After all if you want to disseminate information it is best to do so by  providing it to actual journalists, and NOT Republican propagandists.

Update: Oh this just keeps getting better:

The exchange, or lack of one, followed a contentious session on Wednesday in which Henry essentially accused the president of being indifferent to the families of servicemembers killed in action. The Wednesday exchange between Carney and Henry over the restoration of military death benefits centered on Henry repeatedly asking when Obama “learn[ed] specifically that the military death benefits would not be paid,” the tone becoming more confrontational with each back and forth between Henry and Carney. 

Carney described Henry as a partisan opponent during that exchange. This wasn’t the first contentious exchange between the two. Henry badgered Carney last month about whether or not the White House staffer would sign up for Obamacare. Though Henry meant it as a gotcha-type accusation, Carney replied “If I did not have employer provided health insurance, like I’m sure you do, unless there’s something about Fox I don’t know, then I would absolutely enroll and it would be more affordable.” 

At the impromptu Friday press conference, Carney called on no television reporters, and ignored Henry’s attempts to ask a question.

So NO television reporters were called on, but only ONE cable news idiot threw a tantrum because of it. 

Sarah Palin rebuked by White House for politicizing Secret Service sex scandal. Update!

"Look why do people even listen to me? You know I'm just a vindictive bitch!"

Courtesy of ABC News:

 Sarah Palin's charge that the Secret Service prostitute scandal highlighted President Barack Obama's "poor management skills" drew a sharp rebuke Friday from the White House, where chief spokesman Jay Carney dubbed it absurd and politically motivated. 

"It is preposterous to politicize the Secret Service," Carney told reporters at his daily briefing. 

Palin and Republican Senator Jeff Sessions have in recent days charged that the scandal, coupled to the outrage over the General Services Administration's lavish spending on a convention in Las Vegas, reflect poorly on Obama. Those two controversies, as well as the tragic mass slaying of Afghan civilians, allegedly by an American soldier, have overshadowed much of the White House's agenda in recent weeks. 

"What they're doing is trying to turn these incidents — one that's still under investigation — to political advantage," Carney charged when asked about critics who lump the three issues together. "On the face of it, it's a ridiculous assertion that trivializes both the very serious nature of the endeavor that our military is engaged in in Afghanistan and the very serious nature both of the work that the Secret Service does, the apolitical nature of the institution, and the seriousness of the investigation under way," the spokesman said.

Good for Jay Carney, and the White House!

I am usually not one to want the White House to even acknowledge the existence of Sarah Palin (And I DID notice Carney did not mention her by name) but what she said on Greta's show was unconscionable, and she needs to be called out for this kind of hateful, and deceptive, rhetoric.

Update: Here is the video of Carney's response. As it turns out he DID mention the Grizzled One. Sort of.