White House Take On Obama’s Call To Merkel Is Hilariously Understated

Not since President George W. Bush hit German Chancellor Angela Merkel with an impromptu double-Vulcan-neck-pinch has there been such an awkward moment in U.S. relations with Germany. Things were already strained after Edward Snowden’s revelation that the U.S. monitored Merkel’s cellphone communications, but they went from bad to worse last week when two more cases of alleged U.S. spying on Germany were revealed, and the Germans ordered the CIA station chief to leave the country.

Reports of arrests in those most recent cases emerged the day after President Obama’s last phone call with Merkel, and since then, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest has been fielding a steady stream of questions about the incident, cutting around them with micro-surgical precision. Unable to even confirm the expulsion of the CIA station chief, Earnest has basically had to say a whole lot of nothing.

Finally, this week, President Obama had a chance to speak with Chancellor Merkel by telephone, the first time (that we know of) since this latest flare-up. The White House press office provides reporters with official readouts of these types of calls, and while these readouts are never exactly candid, this one was priceless in its bland PR-speak and burying of the lede. After a couple of long paragraphs about Ukraine and Iran, there was this little bit tacked on at the end (emphasis mine):

The President and the Chancellor also exchanged views on U.S.-German intelligence cooperation, and the President said he’d remain in close communication on ways to improve cooperation going forward.

Exchanged views, did they? On U.S.-German intelligence cooperation? Is that sort of like how Tom ans Jerry had productive interactions regarding feline-rodential relations?

At yesterday’s White House daily briefing, Earnest was asked to elaborate on that readout, and while he didn’t have a lot to add, he did reveal 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.