Did Michael Jackson kill the Iranian revolution?

I don't mean that exactly. But the story of the Iranian crisis was subsumed by the mega-media coverage of the pop singer's tragic end. Iran now appears as barely a blip on our collective RSS feed. We've gone from the whole world is watching to much of the world has moved on.

A few data points. First, in recent days there have been few questions at the White House press briefings on Iran. On Wednesday, Fox News correspondent Major Garrett asked press secretary Robert Gibbs what the president thought about the Iranian police's conclusion that the Neda killing was staged y the opposition. Gibbs met that softball with the obvious swing: "shocking." I followed up with what I considered a more substantial query on Iran, asking Gibbs about Mir Hossein Mousavi's statement of that day. Mousavi had called for continuing protests, had declared the government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad "illegitimate," and had called for the release of detained opposition supporters. Did the president have any reaction, I asked, and has he called for the release of people who have been detained in Iran?

Gibbs said he was unaware if the White House had prepared any comment regarding Mousavi's statement, and he fell back on the usual talking points:

Obviously, David, you've heard the President speak on a number of occasions that the President strongly believes in the right for people to gather in protest without fear or harm or violence.  Obviously there are still a lot of questions that surround the most recent election.  And I think I'll leave it at that.

I've said for weeks that Obama, by and large, has struck the right tone in his remarks about events in Iran. But this response seemed a bit thin. Was it an indication that day to day events in Iran were not looming large within an already quite busy  White House?

On the other side of aisle, let's check in with John McCain's twitter feed, which is followed by over 915,000 people. When I looked at it on Thursday morning, I saw that McCain, who had been calling for more forceful US response on Iran, has not twittered on the subject for a week. But he has twittered about his various media appearances in Arizona during the past week. In twitter-terms, he has left the barricades.

I'll spare you the obvious chest-beating about the ADD of the American public and media. And, of course, the tyrants of Tehran have suppressed media reporting within Iran. No video or pictures--the story fades.

Many analysts who know Iran better than I do have been saying for weeks that given the weak leadership and poor organization of the anti-government movement, the opposition in Iran is in for a long slog. (The Islamic revolution of 1979 took two years to achieve victory.) So don't expect results in the flash of a tweet. Still, the autocrats of Tehran must be saying, "Thank you, Michael Jackson." (Ditto for Governor Mark Sanford.) Today, Americans know far more about the moondancer's will and Neverland  than what's happening--or not--in Iran. And, alas, they care more about it, too.
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To see a music video of a song by an Iranian pop singer who's been arrested for supporting the opposition, click here.
 
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Jim Pinkerton and I were together again for another Bloggingheads.tv diavlog. We mainly agreed on Iran, with Jim sort of concurring with my assessment that John McCain is "bonkers" for pushing Barack Obama to embrace the Iranian opposition. Nothing would hurt the opposition movement's credibility within Iran--where it counts most--than a big wet-kiss from Washington. We then moved on to health care, with Jim suggesting both Ds and Rs are wrong to preach austerity to the American public when it comes to health care dollars. Perhaps, but I challenged his solution: freeing the health care industry from government regs so it can produce the sort of products and services that can be exported abroad a la McDonald's. Finally, our big topic: whether the remaking of the cheesy 1984 anti-commie movie Red Dawn--high school kids in Colorado beat back Russian and Chinese invaders--is of any cultural significance. Jim: yes and hooray! Me: no and yawn.

Also, at Thursday's White House press briefing, I asked press secretary Robert Gibbs about an earlier McCain tweet, in which the senator again urged Obama to declare an explicit alliance with the Iranian opposition. Here's the exchange:

Q: Thanks, Robert. A question about Iran again. Earlier today, a few hours ago, John McCain, on his Twitter feed, said -- and it's short, as it has to be -- "Mass peaceful demonstrations in Iran today; let's support them and stand up for democracy and freedom!"

MR. GIBBS: Was it that vociferous or are you --

Q : "The President and his administration should do the same." Do you think that it is helpful, or not helpful, for members of Congress to be making declarations like this, and putting pressure on the White House to do and say more?

MR. GIBBS: Again, I'm not going to get involved into commenting on the motivations that other members may have. I know some people agree with what Senator McCain said; some people agree with what other Republicans have said that's very much like the President's position. The President strongly believes that we should and have spoken out to ensure that demonstrators have the universal right and principle to demonstrate without fear of harm. But at the same time, we have to respect their sovereignty.

Gibbs did not use the opportunity to call McCain "bonkers" or anything else. But with a crunch time coming in Iran, we can expect McCain and other Rs to turn up the rhetoric and try to intensify the pressure on Obama. That might be good politics for them, but it's not likely to help the Iranian opposition.

It's become almost a daily ritual in the White House press briefing room. Reporters ask press secretary Robert Gibbs what President Obama will fight for regarding the health care reform bill now under construction in Congress, and Gibbs refuses to discuss details. Will Obama oppose a move to tax employee-based tax health care benefits, per his campaign position? Gibbs won't say. What does Obama want to see in a public health insurance option? Gibbs won't say.

At Wednesday's briefing, NBC's Chuck Todd tried to push Gibbs on the taxing benefits issues. Gibbs wouldn't give. Then Todd asked, when it comes to the health care bill, what is Obama "inflexible on?" Gibbs replied,

At the White House press briefing on Monday, CNN's Ed Henry asked a question that I had tried to put to Obama's press team on Friday, after press secretary Robert Gibbs had declined to call on me: Where are those torture documents Dick Cheney wants?

The ex-veep-who-won't-go-away has been saying in interviews that he's requested the release of two classified CIA documents that supposedly outline all the essential intelligence that was produced by torture-assisted interrogations. (He, of course, does not call it torture.)

In response to Henry, Gibbs had no information to share. "I'll check on where that is," he said.

How's this for not building confidence?

On Wednesday, President Barack Obama met with President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan and President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan. And Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a surprise appearance at the daily White House briefing to discuss the trilateral talks under way. Consider this one exchange:

Q Madam Secretary, senior administration officials in recent weeks have swung between fairly sharp criticism and praise of the Afghan and Pakistani governments. You, yourself, said that the Pakistani government was at risk of abdicating to the Taliban. First, do you still believe that is the case? And do you see a risk of sending a mixed message to these partners at a time when both their cooperation are needed in combating the resurgent Taliban?

In the item below, I asked, "Will Obama mobilize his millions," referring to the 13 million or so Amricans who had signed up with his presidential campaign. That is, would he call on these people to help him pass the stimulus package? I was able to put this question to the White House on Friday afternoon. Here's how it went, as I first reported at MotherJones.com:

Those folks who bother to worry about the war in Afghanistan--not a large slice of the population--had reason to fret on Wednesday morning when they picked up (or clicked on) the New York Times and read a front-page story noting that President Barack Obama is adopting a new "approach to Afghanistan that will put more emphasis on waging war than on development." The piece cited unnamed senior administration officials.

At a press briefing on Tuesday, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs had said that the administration was in the early stage of reevaluating Afghanistan policy. He had noted that Obama intended to meet with US Army General David McKiernan, the commander of the NATO-led forces in Afghanistan, to discuss the course ahead. It seemed as if no decisions had been rendered about Afghanistan.

Yet the Times indicated key calls have already been made:

Yesterday, during the White House daily press briefing, I was pondering what question to ask. It really didn't matter because I was not called on. (I cannot complain. Press secretary Robert Gibbs pointed at me during his first briefing last week.) But one query I was considering was about background briefings at the White House. I wrote about this last week, noting that when one reporter had asked Gibbs why the White House wouldn't ID two officials who had given a background briefing regarding the executive orders on Gitmo and torture, other journalists in the White House press room chuckled and Gibbs dodged the question. Seems to me that a White House hailing transparency and accountability might want to explain its use of background briefings (during which senior officials give reporters info that the journos can cite, as long as they don't identify the officials.)

This may seem an insider-y issue. (My other questions concerned global warming and Afghanistan.) But it is symbolic. And my friend Jack Shafer, Slate's media writer, has joined the cause. On Monday, he penned (or is it tapped?) a column on the matter. He writes:

At Robert Gibbs' first briefing as White House press secretary last Thursday, I asked if President Obama had decided not to use the "war on terror" catch phrase that the Bush-Cheney crowd had coined. After all, earlier in the day, when Obama was signing executive orders banning torture and setting a deadline for shutting Gitmo, the new president had not used that three-word term. This question got one of the shortest replies of the briefing, as Gibbs said that Obama was using language consistent with his inaugural address (in which Obama said, "our nation is at war against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred") and that he (Gibbs) was not aware of any decision on Obama's part to scuttle the WOT characterization. Later in the day, while speaking at the State Department, Obama did refer to the "war on terror," in a glancing way.

Despite Gibbs' answer and Obama's reference to the "war on terror," I wondered if the president has an aversion to the term--which would be a good thing. Terror is an abstraction. You cannot defeat an abstraction. And the WOT offers a rather expansive--and easy to abuse--definition of the problem at hand. The United States is confronted by, as Obama said, a particular (though somewhat amorphous) network of evildoers. The enemy is this group, not the notion of terror. And it's still debatable whether "war" is the most appropriate way of describing this challenge.

Gibbs' answer did not resolve the issue, nor did Obama's quick mention of the WOT on Thursday afternoon. And the next day, at Gibbs' second press briefing, Fox News correspondent Major Garrett took another swing at it. He asked,

President Bush, after 9/11, said the United States and its government was engaged in a war on terror. Is that what this administration calls it, and if not, why?

Gibbs replied:

I attended Robert Gibbs' first (and very crowded) White House briefing as press secretary and asked whether President Obama--when he earlier signed an executive order banning torture--had not used the phrase "war on terror" purposefully. (Instead, the new president had referred to the "ongoing struggle" against violence and terrorism.) To find out what Gibbs said, click here.

Many of the queries at the briefing were about that executive orders and another one setting a one-year deadline for closing Gitmo. Gibbs made no news explaining and defending those orders. There were several questions about Wall Street Bailout II, and Gibbs patiently repeated the Obama claim--which seems credible--that he will handle and disburse the bailout funds in a more effective and more transparent manner than the Bush crowd did last year.

There was only one question on Iraq, and nothing on Afghanistan. (Ann Compton of ABC News asked if the military commanders with whom Obama spoke the day before had expressed any "reservations or concerns" about his plan to pull out combat troops within 16 months. Gibbs essentially--and unsurprisingly--said no.) The most buzzy topic was the second swearing-in conducted at the White House the previous night. The press corps dwelled on that a bit much. And then every journo in the room started scribbling furiously when Gibbs disclosed that Obama will keep his BlackBerry, while only using it for limited communications with a limited n umber of senior--make that, very senior--aides. Thinking of those possible millions of missing Bush White House emails, I threw in a follow-up: will Obama's BlackBerry messages be preserved and archived in accordance with the laws governing presidential records. Yup, Gibbs said.

One of the more intriguing questions of the sessions concerned a standard White House procedure: background briefings. This happens when administration officials talk to a group of reporters about a particular issue, and the reporters can use the information provided, but only by citing unnamed White House aides. They cannot ID these officials. The practice is useful for reporters. They get more information. And it's often no big secret in Washington who the unnamed officials are, given that a bunch of journalists know. But in a White House led by a man who has pledged greater transparency, should background briefings be continued? One reporter asked: