Analysis: WH spoxdude Jay Carney dodges answers to questions nearly 9,500 times

Yahoo’s News Ticker blog has a hilarious interactive of the thousands of non-answers WH Spoxdude Jay Carney has given over the course of his time as the Obama administration’s paid liar. Writers Rachel Rose Hartman and Chris Wilson on their analysis (hat tip):

Jay Carney doesn’t have an answer for that. He hasn’t discussed that subject with the president. He will refer you to the Department of [insert agency here]. He refuses to speculate on that. He’ll have to get back to you.

But he appreciates the question.

A Yahoo News analysis of the 444 briefings through June 18 that Carney has held since becoming White House press secretary has identified 13 distinct strains in the way he dodges reporters’ question. Since Carney held hisΒ first daily briefing with reportersΒ in the White House Brady Press Briefing Room on Feb. 16, 2011, for example, he’s used some variation of “I don’t have the answer” more than 1,900 times. In 1,383 cases he referred a question to someone else. But will he at least speculate on hypotheticals? No. In fact, he has refused to do so 525 times.

In the following interactive, you can browse all 9,486 of Carney’s most-used responses and verbal crutches.

I say this is “hilarious” because it has to be a source of huge embarrassment for not only Carney but his bosses in the White House as well, especially when you consider how our celebrity President glided into the White House promising the “most open, honest, transparent administration EVAH!!!” Well, they’ve been – um, transparent, but not in the way they had pledged to be to their millions of faithful supporters both in 2008 and 2012. In reality, once you get beyond the surface comedic value of the interactive you get a very disturbing picture as to just how evasive and secretive this administration has been on a whole host of issues, and not just those directly related to national security where being hesitant to give full details would be kinda understandable.

I’d loooooooove to see the Ticker also do an interactive on the WH’s previous spoxdude Robert Fibbs. Oh the tall tales he told ….

The whitewashing
The thrill is gone.

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