Live Press Conference Blogging

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8:07 PM … Cool, down to some questions. Hmmm, maybe not. The AP reporter just why, if it’s been so hard and unwieldy keeping banks and non-bank financial institutions on life-support, we should try to set up a system of taking them over and shutting it down. So, if this bad situation is so bad, why shouldn’t we try to improve it? Good question.

8:11 PM … Not sure I’m getting Chuck Todd’s question. Isn’t the public sacrificing by lots of people losing their jobs and the whole country going into a huge amount of debt? I like Chuck Todd and I’m honestly not planning to criticize every question. Honest. But maybe that question needed to be thought out a little more clearly.

Can we cancel the bonuses of these reporters? (Hey, come to think of it, Todd works for NBC, which is owned by GE. So this just might be doable.)

8:17 PM … Phew … Jake came through with a decent question. It wasn’t looking pretty.

8:27 PM: … Not sure Obama had a really clear or necessarily really good answer on long-term deficits. Orszag, what happened?

8:30 PM … Just occurred to me: I think we’re a half hour into this thing and we haven’t had one real question on the bank bail-out plan the administration just announced? We’re done with that?

8:32 PM … Huh, Ed Henry asks a pretty solid question. Why is Andrew Cuomo getting more action with AIG than you and Tim Geithner are. Come to think of it, yeah, good question.

8:34 PM … Maybe it’s not a simple argument to make but there is an argument behind what Obama’s doing — we need upfront investments to alleviate our structural deficits over time, particularly on the health care front. But he’s not really making that argument. (Okay, making it a bit now. But still, not leading with it.)

8:36 PM … Can’t wait to hear Bobby Jindal’s response after Obama’s done.

8:37 PM … Major Garrett is one cartoonish dude.

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