By Greg Hazley
Former Time correspondent and bureau chief Jay Carney made his White House press secretary debut on Wednesday, drawing praise with a relatively uneventful but well-attended briefing.
Carney's first question from the White House press corps asked how he sees his role as a press secretary and former journalist.
"We obviously all here serve the President. I work for him,” he said. “But the press secretary is a unique position within a White House. And not just because I’m a former journalist, because I think every press secretary understood this and understands it -- I work to promote the President and the message that he’s trying -- the messages he’s trying to convey to the American people.”
Carney added that he also works to help reporters do their jobs. “So I think it’s been said before that the office that the press secretary has is somewhat symbolically located about halfway between the briefing room and the Oval Office, and I think that says something about what the nature of the job is,” he said.
Keith Koffler, the veteran W.H. correspondent who pens the White House Dossier blog, called Carney's debut "smooth and unruffled" and said he "sounded like he'd been press secretary for about six years."
He added that "overall, as a professional matter, an excellent performance. Carney was under extreme pressure, and he pulled through. Even made it look easy."
Writing for GQ, Ana Marie Cox called the debut "less a news event than a ritual."
She wrote: "He performed as well as anyone in the position to can be expected to: He made no news—not-making-news is in the press secretary's job description. He was minimally charming and maximally on point. He wore a dark maroon tie with blue stripes."
The White House also said Wednesday that deputy press secretary Bill Burton is leaving the administration to set up a political consulting shop with former Rahm Emanuel adviser Sean Sweeney in D.C.
Here is a full transcript of the press conference. Video is on YouTube.
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