robert gibbs

Maybe “blasts” was the wrong verb for my old headline on the White House’s response to Israel’s expansion of settlements in Palestinian East Jerusalem. The White House appears to have done some editing.
When the White House press shop sent out its statement criticizing Israel this afternoon — I received mine at 2:14 p.m. — the [...]

Contrary to nearly a year of stern insistence from the Obama administration that Israel refrain from all growth in occupied Palestinian territory — an insistence that frayed with a recent comment by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton that the administration has tried to walk back — Israel has announced the construction of 900 new [...]

The moderate leader of the Palestinian Authority announces that he’s not going to stand for re-election — largely because doing the Obama administration a solid has wrecked his political standing — and White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, as a man once put it, files his nails while they drag the lake. From today’s White [...]

More from today’s funtime White House presser. Jake Tapper of ABC asked Robert Gibbs about the Afghanistan election:
TAPPER:  President Obama last month in Pittsburgh said, of the Afghan elections and the aftermath, “What’s most important is that there’s a sense of legitimacy in Afghanistan among the Afghan people for their government.”  Is there a sense [...]

If you saw me on al-Jazeera fifteen minutes ago making this point, sorry for repeating myself. But if not: Robert Gibbs said in his White House press conference today that the Obama strategy review for Afghanistan will go on — a troop decision is apparently still weeks away — and will continue to look at [...]

So it seems that Robert Gibbs today inelegantly tried to distinguish between al-Qaeda and the Taliban — sigh, that shouldn’t have been too difficult — and in the process of that explanation, used the word “jihadist,” a term that the Obama administration strenuously avoids. Carol E. Lee at Politico tries to explain:
Jihadist is seen as [...]

As the Obama administration assesses that Iran is near nuclear capability , Iran has released a series of proposals for negotiations on the nuclear question. It’s technically secret, but someone forgot to tell ProPublica’s Dafna Linzer.
In the document, titled “Cooperation for Peace, Justice and Progress,” Iran reiterated many of its previous ideas for talks while [...]

In defiance of President Obama’s expressed and unequivocal statements and international obligations, the Netanyahu government in Israel intends to authorize “hundreds” of new housing units on Palestinian territory in the West Bank, which the AP reports is a prelude to even more settlement construction. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs’ office just sent out this [...]

From today’s White House press briefing:
Q    Are you still confident that this could be a legitimate election tomorrow?
MR. GIBBS:  We look forward to observing what happens tomorrow and hope that it’s safe and secure.
Can’t really blame him for that dodge. But perhaps the point isn’t getting through that Afghans are the people who have to [...]

During today’s press gaggle, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said he made a mistake by calling the just-sworn-in Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the “elected leader” of Iran:
MR. GIBBS:  Well, let me correct a little bit of what I said yesterday.  I denoted that Mr. Ahmadinejad was the elected leader of Iran.  I would say it’s not [...]