CBS White House Correspondent Chip Reid blogs today about an exchange between White House press secretary Robert Gibbs and veteran reporter Helen Thomas.  The questions actually followed up on something Reid himself asked during Friday’s daily press briefing: when will Obama do another press conference?

The most recent Obama press conference was on July 22, 2009.  You’ll recall that for the first few months of the Obama presidency he was all about press conferences, holding them quite frequently.  In addition, he made numerous visits to the press cabin on Air Force One before stopping that practice. 

So here’s the question: why the shift?  Has the White House heard the criticism about Obama’s supposed overexposure and shifted strategy?  Have they soured to a press corps that gave them a good 100-day honeymoon and is now asking tougher questions?  Did they decide it is best to put him out there when he has something positive to talk about rather than spend an hour on the defensive?  Or, have they finally decided using their surrogates is a good strategy (John Brennan and Carol Browner have both received high marks for their recent TV appearances).  (Columns I have written on those topics linked above)

The answer could be a combination of all these things.  But no matter the reason, the press corps always loves a press conference, you can’t argue with that!