Obama to hold press conference tomorrow

WASHINGTON -- For the fourth time in five months on the job, President Obama will hold a news conference with Washington reporters -- this time, in the Rose Garden of the White House.

The White House said Obama will give a brief statement, thn take questions from reporters; the administration's communications staff would not release any advance details about what the president would say. The situation in Iran -- where a police crackdown on protesters has led to deadly violence -- will likely dominate the 12:30 p.m. news conference.

Critics on the right, including Republican Senators Lindsay Graham of South Carolina and John McCain of Arizona -- Obama's challenger in the 2008 presidential election -- have chastized the president for not openly supporting the demonstrators. Students and others took to the streets of Tehran in large numbers on charges that the ruling Iranian regime rigged the vote in leadership elections a few weeks ago.

Obama, however, has stressed that the regime would interpret any strong statement from him as US meddling in its domestic affairs, giving them an excuse to use an even more brutal hand with the demonstrators. Obama's defenders also note that taking sides wocould jeopardize derail ongoing American diplomacy aimed at convincing Iran to abandon its ambitions for a nuclear weapon.

After declaring that Iran itself should choose its own leaders, without violence, Obama used increasingly tougher but still restrained language on the situation over the weekend. As waves of Iranian security forces arrested and clubbed protesters, the president called on the Iranian government to end the "unjust" use of violence against its own people.

Reporters at the White House press conference tomorrow also will likely ask the president tough questions about opposition to his health-care overhaul, the struggling American economy's slow recovery and significant problems with the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Since taking office Jan. 20, Obama has held three q-and-a sessions with reporters, including a press conference broadcast live in prime time about two months ago. But this one may hold a bit more urgency: recent polls show that Obama's personal popularity remains high but doubts are growing about his plans to fix the economy and the massive federal debt it requires.

White House press conferences in the past have been seen as free-wheeling events, with notepad-waving reporters shouting and competing for the president's attention. But under Obama and his predecessor, President George W. Bush, they have been somewhat scripted and tightly controlled.

The president decides in advance who he will call on, choosing from a list before him at the podium. The opportunities for anyone not on that list is pretty limited, and asking a follow-up question generally depends on how aggressive the reporter wants to be.