WHite House RESPONDS to Rick Santelli

[link to www.politico.com]

The White House is lashing out publicly and personally at a CNBC reporter whose attack on President Barack Obama’s anti-foreclosure plan caught fire on the Internet on Thursday.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs jumped at the chance to go after the CNBC journalist, Rick Santelli, when a question about his bracing critique was asked at Friday’s news briefing.

“I’ve watched Mr. Santelli on cable the past 24 hours or so. I’m not entirely sure where Mr. Santelli lives or in what house he lives but the American people are struggling every day to meet their mortgages, stay in their jobs, pay their bills, send their kids to school,” Gibbs said. “I think we left a few months ago the adage that if it was good for a derivatives trader that it was good for Main Street. I think the verdict is in on that,” the press secretary said, poking directly at the cable journalist, who reports from the trading floor at the Chicago Board of Trade.


“Mr. Santelli has argued, I think quite wrongly, that this plan won’t help everyone,” Gibbs said. “This plan helps people who have been playing by the rules. ... I would encouraged him to read the president’s plan. ... I’d be more than happy to have him come here to read it. I’d be happy to buy him a cup of coffee — decaf,” the press secretary said, in a not-so-subtle jab at Santelli’s frantic style.

Gibbs brandished a copy of a fact sheet about Obama’s plan. “Download it, hit print, and begin to read it,” he said. In an unusually personal and direct attack on a specific journalist, Gibbs used Santelli’s name at least five times.