There haven’t been that many moments of levity during the past week’s White House briefings. And rightly so. Between the tragedy in Connecticut and the congressional and presidential impasse on the fiscal cliff, there really hasn’t been a lot to joke about.
But today when White House Press Secretary Jay Carney stepped off the fiscal cliff metaphor ledge (sorry), laughter ensued.
During today’s briefing, Carney derided Republicans in the House for not accepting the president’s latest fiscal cliff offer. “Instead of taking the opportunity that was presented to them to continue to negotiate what could be a very helpful, large deal for the American people, the Republicans in the House have decided to run down an alley that has no exit…while we all watch,” Carney said.
Of course, no good journalist would let the alley-metaphor go to waste, which led to this question from Real Clear Politics’ Alexis Simendinger:
“After the Republicans run down the alley from which there is no exit, will the president be standing there or calling them?”
Carney’s answer:
“The dangers of throwing out metaphors is that people pick them up and, what I am confident of is that they don’t have, at the end of that alley, like, a Batplane to fly out, you know, to their own rescue… Do you remember that scene? It was good. It was a good scene.”
Which of course begged the question from another reporter, “Does the president have a Batplane?”
Carney was ready with his response, “I can’t talk about that. It’s classified.”
So to review:
- Yes, Jay Carney has seen the latest and supposedly last installment in Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy.
- Yes, Jay liked it.
- And, it is currently unclear if the president has access to a Batplane.
Shawna Thomas
Shawna is a Senior Producer of "Meet the Press" and also works on expanding the show to multiple NBC News and social media platforms. Before that she was one of NBC News' White House producers, reported on Congress and helped plan NBC's coverage of the 2008 presidential election. She has a degree in political communication from the George Washington University and a graduate degree in journalism from the University of Southern California.