The Obama Press Conference In Five Minutes

Did you miss today's surprise White House presser between President Barack Obama and the White House press corps? Because it ended up being an essential part of Budget Kabuki Week. Here's how it worked: reporters in the room made some noises that sort of sounded like, "Do you think that the cuts you've outlined here are sufficient?" and "What about entitlements?" And then the president would say things like "Ronald Reagan" and "tough choices" and "we'll all come together."

That whole "entitlement debate" is like, the early stages of planning an important cotillion in space, among alien races. Is the President showing insufficient leadership by not "going first" and cutting entitlements? Maybe! But the GOP aren't doing much better -- in pretty much every Sunday-show appearance, top GOP officials say that all they are ready to do is to "engage America in a conversation" about the "tough choices." And the president is saying the same thing, only he also says that entitlements are a "boat" that everyone has to get in together, at the same time, and in a way that prevents it from capsizing.

So, entitlement reform is on a boat. Should we board that boat, America? Let's talk about that, for a few years.

Also, someone asked about Egypt? But mainly it was the president stating his position on the budget and then quickly remixing it for reporters, who largely didn't notice or care that the president was repeating himself.

Our own Ben Craw has assembled a five-minute version of the presser that contains everything you need to know about what's going on, which is not much.

[Video produced by Ben Craw]

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