President Obama’s press conference is still ongoing as I write this, but it’s pretty remarkable. He spoke fairly powerfully for some time about gun violence and his intention to submit a gun package to Congress by January. Then he took questions, and the press corps simply couldn’t have cared less. There have been four questions so far, and all four were the usual nitwittery about the fiscal cliff. There’s no news there and everyone knows it. There’s nothing Obama can really say. But it’s Beltway process news, and that’s what every reporter cares about.
Guns? Whatever. Now tell us whether you think your budget proposal is something Republicans should accept. You do? How remarkable!
UPDATE: Hold on! Question number five is about guns. Hooray!
UPDATE 2: The last question of the press conference came from Jake Tapper, who pointed out that Obama had made a “political calculation” to avoid gun issues in his first term even though there had been several mass killings during that time, including the Aurora massacre last July. “Where have you been?” he asked. Watch the exchange below, starting at 22:00:
