A reporter last week had the guts to ask Obama about the rumors that there is a video of his wife using the derogatory term "Whitey."
Obama used something he might have learned from Bill Clinton, the "non-denial denial."
"If somebody has evidence that myself or Michelle or anybody has said something inappropriate, let them do it."
Again, this is not a denial. It's simply a challenge to produce proof (or at least evidence). And in the follow up, he apparently refused, once again, to deny it. It was what is called in the business a "non-denial denial."
This is the game that Bill Clinton used to play a lot. When confronted about something, he would feign outrage, and attack the questioner, and say something like "I'm not going to even dignify that with a response." But he wouldn't actually deny it. The most classic case was the Juanita Broaddrick rape accusation. He never denied it. If anyone thinks that he did, provide a transcript. He sent out his lawyer to deny it, but his lawyer has no knowledge of whether it is true or not, other than hearsay from Bill. He wasn't in the room with them.
This looks like exactly the same behavior. Of course, part of the problem is that he's not sure what it is he should be denying, because the rumors are all over the place as to what she said or did. But it would have been better to say something like, "I've seen all these rumors running around on the Internet about some imminent bombshell concerning my wife, and I can tell you categorically that they are not true."
That would be a denial. But he didn't say that. I wonder why?
I wonder why, too.
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