Okay- I don’t think it’s much of a surprise at this point that the administration demands that reporters submit questions in advance. Telling? Yes, surprising? Not so much… but here’s what’s most shocking to me about the whole thing: Even with the advantage of being able to script out answers for the President to parrot back, he still manages to embarrass himself consistently.

Dan Froomkin writes in his column today that he will be looking into why exactly Irish TV and Radio reporter Carole Coleman was required to submit her questions in advance. Here’s what Carole said:

“He was tough. He was very tough. And the policy of the White House is that you submit your questions in advance, and so they had my questions for about three days. They knew I was going to ask tough questions and I think he was prepared for that. . . .”

I think the White House press corps is lying to us. Again and again suspicions of scripted press conferences and pre-approved questions have been raised only to be knocked down by the White House reporters. Either somebody outside the White House press needs to look into this or someone inside needs to grow a pair and start questioning the way they do business.

Frankly, I suspect they’re ashamed- so they’re hiding it.