TightWind is written by Kyle Baxter. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Helen Thomas in Wednesday’s White House press briefing, in discussion over the president’s “town hall” meeting where the questions and audience were preselected:

The point is the control from here. We have never had that in the White House — this White House. And we have had some control but not this control. I mean I’m amazed, I’m amazed at you people who call for openness and transparency and you have controlled…

Here is a transcript of the briefing, but the video captures just how non-responsive Gibbs was to Thomas’s and Reid’s question.

The issue Reid and Thomas raise is important: town halls are intended to be a direct way for the public to ask questions, to eliminate the typical control that public political events have, so politicians are more responsive. But today’s “town hall,” although dressed up to look like one (the TV screens even read “Open for Questions”), wasn’t. It was a means for the president to get his message to the public in precisely the way he wanted.

Here is why that is so wrong: today’s event is as defined and controlled an event as any other, but it is presented to look like it is open and transparent. Good politics maybe, but certainly not honest.