Jay Carney A Fan Of Grandmaster Flash, But Not Of Stupid Questions

Believe it or not, there are actually drawbacks to having a ginormous phone that doubles as a portable home theater system, aside from the unrelenting ball-breaking. One such drawback became apparent at Monday’s White House daily briefing, as ABC News White House Correspondent Jon Karl’s interrogation of Press Secretary Jay Carney was interrupted by the extremely loud first several measures of Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five‘s “Scorpio.”

“Tommy, is that you?” Carney asked. “Whose awesome ringtone is that?”

Yes, it was me, and as I tried to explain to Carney, I not only had my ringer muted, but I was taping the briefing on the phone, so there’s no reason it should have done that. As it turns out, I had muted the ringer, but not the alarm that I have set to go off every day right before my kids get home from school. You can’t really tell from the video, because the shotgun mic wasn’t pointed at me, but it was really effing loud.

Real White House briefing junkies will recall that, several years ago, Robert Gibbs actually confiscated Human Events correspondent John Gizzi’s phone after it went off twice during a briefing, so I got off pretty easy. Jay, if you’re reading this, “Scorpio” is available on iTunes. I should also add that it is pure coincidence that Karl’s question was interrupted by a song whose next line is “show no shame.”

Karl was trying to nail Carney down on whether the White House would “cooperate fully” with John Boehner’s select committee on #Benghazi, after a series of other reporters got the same answer. Carney repeatedly said that…READ MORE

By: Tommy Christopher

Tommy Christopher is The Daily Banter's White House Correspondent and Political Analyst. He's been a political reporter and liberal commentator since 2007, and has covered the White House since the beginning of the Obama administration, first for PoliticsDaily, and then for Mediaite. Christopher is a frequent guest on a variety of television, radio, and online programs, and was the villain in the documentaries The Audacity of Democracy and Hating Breitbart. He's also That Guy Who Live-Tweeted His Own Heart Attack, and the only person to have ever received public apologies from both Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.