President Obama’s handlers are using the same media strategy they used in 2007/08 –  Avoid any potential for hard-hitting questions.   When the news cycle contains “big issues”, or controversial issues, the media will be kept at arms length.   This is all a carefully scripted construction to protect their candidate who cannot speak unscripted without revealing his ineptitude.

It is a little more visible this year than what was in 2008 because Barack Obama is now President, but the strategy and intention are exactly the same.    Check out the latest interview  (the lady giggles like a shoolgirl for having the opportunity to “flirt with” the President):

(via Politico) There’s nothing wrong with doing softball interviews during a campaign cycle. Lots of people vote based on likeability, and to that end one’s take on the mole in Albuquerque is a matter of great regional importance. Music matters even more — Nick Hornby has argued that you can tell a lot more about a person by what they like than by what they’re like.

But, more than eight weeks since his last press conference, every question the president fields from an outlet like 93.3 KOB.FM becomes another turn of the thumb in the eye of his White House press corps.

“I just flirted with the President of the United States of America,” the co-host of the show says after President Obama hangs up. White House correspondents, meanwhile, are begging for a suggestive glance from across the room. 

Even liberal water-carrier Andrea Mitchell calls him out….