Google It

Everyone has been buzzing about Helen Thomas and Chip Reid's grilling of Robert Gibbs over the purported staging of President Obama's last health care town hall. If you have not seen the video, I'm sure it is still on the front page of Hot Air or the Huffington Post - whichever you have bookmarked - you can view it there. However, the funniest reaction to the whole thing (I think) came from Dana Perino (former Bush press secretary) writing over at National Review.

A friend emailed this morning to say he couldn’t believe what he heard Mika Brzezinski say on Morning Joe today regarding yesterday’s press briefing where Helen Thomas and Chip Reid asked Robert Gibbs several questions about President Obama’s so-called “Town Hall” on health care yesterday:

The question I would have for her [Helen] is if she felt she could ask that question during the Bush administration and get that aggressive.

Seriously? I almost injured myself when I fell over laughing when I read that comment.

I am no longer a spokesperson, but I feel I can speak for all of Bush’s press secretaries when I say that the question I would like to ask Mika is: Did she miss every press briefing of the Bush administration?

Yesterday was tame by comparison to the grilling we all got — including questions premised on our troops purposely killing innocent people. Those were really fun to field. Not.

The things all press secretaries have in common are going toe-to-toe with Helen Thomas, living through it, and being better communicators for having had the experience.

I wonder if Helen takes offense at the notion she wasn’t aggressive with us.

I don’t think I’ll ask her!

If Mika is looking to broaden her horizons, I'm sure there are plenty of reports of Helen Thomas lobbing "softballs" at Dana or Tony Snow or Scott McClellan or Ari Fleisher. All you have to do is have your research staff "Google It".