White House press secretary Jay Carney mocked Fox News correspondent Ed Henry on Thursday over his famous complaint about the White House press' lack of access to President Obama's golf game.
Henry, in his capacity as president of the White House Correspondents' Association, expressed "extreme frustration" earlier in February that reporters were barred from seeing Obama play golf with Tiger Woods.
Carney's ribbing came after Henry once again raised the issue of transparency — and, once again, chose a fairly minor event to make his point. He wondered why the swearing-in ceremony for new Treasury secretary Jack Lew didn't have any press in attendance.
"It was a private ceremony," Carney said. Henry pushed back, wondering why Lew's predecessor, Tim Geithner, didn't have a problem bringing the press into his swearing-in ceremony.
"Right now there’s a budget crisis that you’ve been talking about from this podium every day," he said. "Why wouldn’t the president open it up to TV cameras and say —"
Carney cut him off.
“The president addressed the looming sequester challenge as recently as last night,” he said. “He took questions on it from you guys less than a week ago on Friday."
Then Carney hit Henry where it must have hurt.
“Granted, it’s not as important as, you know, who he’s playing golf with, but he will be talking about this very important policy issue and engaging with you on it in the future,” he said.
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