When growing up desi, you learn through painful experience to avoid One-Track Uncle at family parties. Whether it’s the greatness of fifth-century India, the importance of religion, American politics or the problem with ‘yooth’ these days, One-Track Uncle has a favorite harangue which he’s made his own soliloquy. And there are usually several of them at a party. With a little samosa and a little beer, you can usually get a circle of uncles launching monologues at each other and pretending to listen. They’ll politely ha-ha and not so subtly change the subject back to their own particular obsessions.

If only they had blogging back in the day.

So it surprises me not at all to find that One-Track Uncle also appears at the grandaddy of all circle jerks, the presidential press conference. Meet Raghubir Goyal, an Indian reporter whose obsession with Pakistan has become the subject of much humor inside the Beltway:

“The 32-minute pummeling was perhaps the worst McClellan received since he got the job two years ago… [he] robotically refused to answer no fewer than 35 questions about Rove and the outing of the CIA’s Valerie Plame.”… Pummeled by tough questions, McClellan time and again reached for a lifeline. His first… was “Raghubir Goyal of the India Globe, who reliably asks about Pakistan — and did so again…” That gambit had a payoff for McClellan: Once it seemed clear that the mumbling Goyal was just warming up, CNN chose to cut away from its live coverage of the briefing. [Link]

The idea is it becomes a feeding frenzy in the press room — you’re just getting hammered with question after question you don’t really want to answer, but if you’re careful you can call on somebody like Mr. Goyal, who’s known to all as Goyal, who will predictably ask you about isn’t it time we start bombing Pakistan, because he’s representing an Indian point of view… you can pretty reliably change the subject… [Link]

This wasn’t a one-time occurrence — ‘Goyal the Foil’ predates the current White House press secretary:

There are those who everybody in the room knows will be off-topic, like Raghubir Goyal, a reporter for India Globe, who sometimes sits in one of the front rows when there is a vacancy. He is primarily interested in the tensions between India and Pakistan. The other reporters have taken to calling him “Goyal the foil,” contending that Mr. [Ari] Fleischer, like previous press secretaries, relies on him to break up tense moments. [Link]

In fencing terms… what Mr. Fleischer did was perform a classic displacement which is moving the target to avoid an attack — basically a dodge… [Link]

This move even predates the current administration. Some obscurantist regularly asked the Clinton press secretary about the island of Crete:

This maneuver isn’t original with Ari Fleischer. Mike McCurry [of the Clinton administration] also used it, I guess to avoid questions about the Lewinsky scandal… Joe Lockhart [of the Clinton administration] said he had a favorite. It was a, a Greek reporter who would constantly be asking very technical and obscure questions about Crete which he would actually prepare on so Lockhart could answer him at some length, and it’s sort of a filibuster to try to run out the clock. But surprisingly enough, Lockhart said when you’re in a jam, you go to Goyal… [Link]

Goyal is called on to avoid talking about scandals:

Want to change the subject to foreign affairs? Call on Raghubir Goyal of the India Globe (he’ll ask about the perfidies of Pakistan)… Last week, when press secretary Ari Fleischer was getting peppered with questions about Enron Corp. and its chief, Kenneth L. Lay, Fleischer turned to the Goyal Foil. “Goyal,” Fleischer said as others shouted to get his attention… The press corps resisted… “Hold on,” the press secretary commanded. “Goyal, go ahead.” Goyal did his usual. “If I may go back to India and Pakistan…,” he began…

On the day the White House first disclosed that administration officials had been approached by Enron about its financial troubles, most reporters had only one subject in mind. After a battery of tough Enron questions, Fleischer reached for Goyal as if for a life raft. “As far as the home minister of India’s visit,” Goyal began. When others tried to jump in, the press secretary asked Goyal if he had a follow-up question. Goyal did, about Pakistani fighter planes… [Link]

Goyal hasn’t been the only go-to guy for softballs. Others have been Jeff Gannon, everybody’s favorite reporter / hooker, and radio personality Lester Kinsolving:

… the king of this is Lester Kinsolving [sp?] who’s on — does a radio show in Baltimore and– he’ll pick the most outrageous event that’s happened in the country that day and, and demand to know what the president’s personal point of view is… So when in doubt, reach for the Kinsolving. To move from fencing to golf, he’s kind of the reliable 5 iron… He is the all-purpose foil, and invariably when you – as soon as he gets called on, the wire reporters in the front row who are the ones who say they’ve had enough of the briefing will say thank you in very loud voices, and we can all go back to our desks. [Link]

But Goyal isn’t in the same league as the true eccentrics in the press room:

… there’s one very small elderly gentleman who wears an enormous hat. We believe his name is Miguel, and we suspect he is Cuban, and he shouts out questions in a completely unintelligible way and nobody knows exactly what he’s says… [Link]

So when scandals roll around, remember that it’s milk and honey for the foreign press:

So the predictable obsessions of particular journalists are the press secretary’s best friends!… Things like the Enron scandal and– the Lewinsky scandal are just boom time for the foreign press corps… if you are a journalist representing an obscure African nation, you might want to plant yourself in the White House press room and you’ll get multiple followups… [Link]

Just once, at the last press conference Goyal does before he retires, I’d love to see him ask a tough, topical, domestic question of the press secretary looking for an easy way out. There would be shock. There might be laughter. There might even be applause 🙂