Obama Gets Snippy with Reporter

The Los Angeles Times reports:

Texas, it appears, is messing with President Obama.

The White House has been making a concentrated effort to reach out to local media in key states in a bid to deliver its message more directly to the American people—and evade the hand-me-down coverage of the national press, which George W. Bush, a Texan, used to call “the filter.”

But on Monday, things did not go as scripted. Obama grew testy with a reporter from a Dallas-Fort Worth TV station who at one point reminded him that he lost in the state by more than 10 points in 2008, not the “few percentage points” he claimed during the interview.

The reporter, Brad Watson, also asked Obama why he “was so unpopular in Texas.”

Finally, Obama responded: "If what you're telling me is Texas is a conservative state, you're absolutely right."

As the interview ended, Obama admonished Watson, saying,  “Let me finish my answers the next time we do an interview, all right?”

He also pushed back when pressed on whether the White House played a role in sending them space shuttle Endeavor to be exhibited in California, not Texas, which angered the Texas congressional delegation. Some accused Obama of playing politics with the move.

“That’s wrong. We had nothing to do with it,” Obama said. “The White House had nothing to do it.”