quinta-feira, 12 de fevereiro de 2009

Hop Hop

(primeira conferência de imprensa em prime-time de Barack Obama, algures no meio da dita)

QUESTION: Mr. President, at a speech Friday that many of us covered, Vice President Biden said the following thing about a conversation the two of you had in the Oval Office about a subject he didn't disclose.

QUESTION: "If we do everything right, if we do it with absolute certainty, if we stand up there and we really make the tough decisions, there's still a 30 percent chance we're going to get it wrong."

Since the vice president brought it up, can you tell the American people, sir, what you were talking about? And if not, can you at least reassure them it wasn't the stimulus bill or the bank rescue plan and if, in general, you agree with that ratio of success, 30 percent failure, 70 percent success?

OBAMA: You know, I don't remember exactly what Joe was referring to...

(LAUGHTER)

... not surprisingly. But let me try this out. I think what Joe may have been suggesting -- although I wouldn't put numerical -- I wouldn't ascribe any numerical percentage to any of this -- is that, given the magnitude of the challenges that we have, any single thing that we do is going to be part of the solution, not all of the solution.

And as I said in my introductory remarks, not everything we do is going to work out exactly as we intended it to work out. You know, this is an unprecedented problem.

And, you know, when you talk to economists, there's some general sense of how we're going to move forward. There's some strong consensus about the need for a recovery package of a certain magnitude. There's a strong consensus that you shouldn't put all your eggs in one basket, all tax cuts or all investment, but that there should be a range of approaches.

But even if we do everything right on that, we've still got to deal with what we just talked about, the financial system, and making sure that banks are lending again. We're still going to have to deal with housing. We're still going to have to make sure that we've got a regulatory structure, a regulatory architecture for the financial system that prevents crises like this from occurring again.

Now, those are big, complicated tasks. So I don't know whether Joe was referring to that, but I used that as a launching point to make a general point about these issues.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) OBAMA: I have no idea. I really don't.


Resposta inacreditável. Mas o que vem a seguir?, perguntam vocês. Pergunta sobre o terrorismo, ou sobre o Partido Republicano, atrevem-se uns quantos a arriscar.

Michael Fletcher from the Washington Post?

QUESTION: Yes, thank you, sir. What is your reaction to Alex Rodriguez's admission that he used steroids as a member of the Texas Rangers?

OBAMA: You know, I think it's depressing news on top of what's been a flurry of depressing items when it comes to Major League Baseball. And if you're a fan of Major League Baseball, I think it -- it tarnishes an entire era, to some degree. And it's unfortunate, because I think there are a lot of ballplayers who played it straight.

And, you know, the thing I'm probably most concerned about is the message it sends to our kids. What I'm pleased about is Major League Baseball seems to finally be taking this seriously, to recognize how big a problem this is for the sport, and that our kids hopefully are watching and saying, "You know what? There are no short cuts, that when you try to take short cuts, you may end up tarnishing your entire career, and that your integrity's not worth it." That's the message I hope is communicated.


Mais impressionante do que a estupidez da pergunta, só mesmo o brilhantismo da resposta, tão boa - como a anterior, aliás - que poucos diriam que se tratam de palavras faladas com uma mão cheia de centésimos de segundo a servir de handicap.

2 comentários:

Anónimo disse...

Vi a conferência toda e foi de facto brilhante.
mesmo que se diga - e há quem o faça - que o teor das perguntas é previamente informado pelos jornalistas aos adidos de imprensa da casa branca (há um n.º mínimo de lugares quando comparados com o n.º de jornalistas que pedem acreditação, daí a "moeda de troca")... mas enfim, não lhe retira brilhantismo, apenas o tira do olimpo para a nossa pequenina esfera.

rosé mari disse...

por acaso desconhecia esse detalhe...de deus, passa a herói, vá.