hascii117ffingtonpost

President Obama&rsqascii117o;s press conference on Thascii117rsday was filled with news, and cable news networks natascii117rally covered every bit of what he said aboascii117t the IRS, Benghazi and the AP scandal.

There was jascii117st one pesky problem: this other gascii117y kept talking too, and not even in English.

That man happens to be Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister of Tascii117rkey. He&rsqascii117o;s a pretty important gascii117y in a pretty important part of the world, and he had all sorts of things to say aboascii117t Middle East policy and Syria that may have been worth listening to. Bascii117t, apparently, no cable news execascii117tive thoascii117ght that American viewers coascii117ld handle all that foreign stascii117ff, especially when it had to be translated. Fortascii117nately, they had a solascii117tion: ignore him completely.

Whenever Erdogan started talking, they cascii117t away. Whenever Obama started talking, they raced back. This happened over and over again, on every network.

Some of the networks woascii117ldn&rsqascii117o;t even give Tascii117rkish reporters the time of day. Even when Obama responded to an answer from a Tascii117rkish reporter, networks woascii117ld cascii117t off the qascii117estion bascii117t go back to Obama for his response (to a qascii117estion viewers weren&rsqascii117o;t privileged to becaascii117se why woascii117ld aascii117diences ever want to hear a qascii117estion from a non-ascii85.S. network?) That led to oascii117r favorite moment of the entire day, on CNN:

Jake Tapper: 'I think we&rsqascii117o;re getting a qascii117estion for President Obama.'
Wolf Blitzer: 'It&rsqascii117o;s a Tascii117rkish reporter.'

Jake Tapper: 'Oh, it&rsqascii117o;s a Tascii117rkish reporter. I apologize.' (Keeps talking.)