Another non-story story.

Michelle Malkin, among other conservative bloggers, is making a big deal out of a "coordinated" question between Obama and the Huffington Post at today's press conference. While Obama's set-up to the question obviously involved a bit of grandstanding, it was grandstanding in the best possible way...the way that tells those both here and abroad that he's wired into the situation in the only real way it's being communicated: the internet. Here's his set-up:

“Nico, I know you and all across the Internet, we’ve been seeing a lot of reports coming out of Iran,” Obama said, addressing Pitney. “I know there may actually be questions from people in Iran who are communicating through the Internet. Do you have a question?”

The journalist, Nico Pitney, then proceeded to ask one of the toughest, most pointed questions of the entire press conference:

“Under which conditions would you accept the election of Ahmadinejad, and if you do accept it without any significant changes in the conditions there, isn’t that a betrayal of the — of what the demonstrators there are working towards?”

Jesus---you'd think for such a liberal rag the guy from The Huffington Post could have served up a bit more of a softball, no? Malkin does admit that, "The question itself was unobjectionable," but she objects to the "embarrassingly obvious and patronizing coordination of the question." So...is Obama supposed to just ask without coordination, "Does anyone have any questions from the Iranian people? Anyone? Anyone?"

Quite frankly, if Malkin says the question is "unobjectionable," then that's code for "damn hard question I can't find any way to make a fuss about." So rather than make a fuss over a question that can't be fussed over, or make a substantive critique about the two-minute response Obama gave (she called it "bland and rambling"), she instead chooses to make a fuss over...the President coordinating the unfussable question. For the record, it doesn't seem that Obama knew what question Pitney would ask...only that he would be asking a question that had been received directly from an Iranian citizen.

Via Politico: Deputy press secretary Bill Burton responds: "We did reach out to him (Pitney) prior to press conference to tell him that we had been paying attention to what he had been doing on Iran and there was a chance that he’d be called on. And, he ended up asking the toughest question that the President took on Iran. In the absence of an Iranian press corps in Washington, it was an innovative way to get a question directly from an Iranian."

Yes, clearly this is yet another case of the liberal media cooperating with Obama.