Thread: CURL: In France, Obama takes no questions from French

CURL: In France, Obama takes no questions from French
Joseph Curl POLITICAL THEATER
Friday, April 3, 2009

President Obama held a much ballyhooed town hall in Strasbourg, France, on Friday, touted by the White House as an outreach to Europeans on the second leg of the president's "listening" tour.

But the first person he called on was an American -- and the third, too. At the end of the hourlong session, not a single French citizen got to ask the U.S. president a question.

In all, Obama took just five questions from the thousands of people packed into a sports arena after delivering a lengthy speech read from a teleprompter. And the topics were on the light side; one asked about the family dog, another about whether "you regret to have run for presidency."

Obama seemed surprised when his first questioner turned out to be an American. "I did not call on an American on purpose," he said with a smile before delivering a long answer to the woman's question about his legacy as president.

His second questioner came from a student from Heidelberg, Germany, but his third also turned out to be an American -- a young woman who declared she was from Chicago but was "also French."

"What do you think, should we let her ask her question?" Obama asked the audience. After tepid support -- and no boos -- he said, "OK, go ahead."

"I was wondering if the dog was already in the White House or not," the young woman asked.

"This is a very important question in the United States, what kind of dog and when we're getting it," he told the audience made up mostly of French and German students.

After the first question, Obama warned the Americans in the audience to sit quietly. "Americans, wait until we get back home and I'll do a town hall there, because I want to hear from my French and German and European friends."

He called on a young man for the fourth question, and while he did not identify where he was from, the man had a heavy German accent. His final question went to "that young woman in the red," another student from Heidelberg.

"I wanted to tell you that your name in Hungarian means peach," she said.

"Peach? Well, how 'bout that -- I did not know that," Obama said.

http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/ap ... ns-french/

Gerald Celente calls Obama the "telepromter orator".

"I was wondering if the dog was already in the White House or not," the young woman asked.

"This is a very important question in the United States, what kind of dog and when we're getting it," he told the audience made up mostly of French and German students.

Yep, you got us Obummer, nothing more important on our mind than your freaking dog.

I wonder if those people were audience plants like Bush used to do? Those use to piss me off. Obama probably gave them the questions to ask before hand.