Former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Tuesday that President Obama first response to the developing Internal Revenue Service targeting scandal sounded "exceedingly passive" to him.
Gibbs recommended a bipartisan commission to examine policy toward 501(c)(4) groups in advance of the formal release of the Treasury inspector general's report on the IRS targeting.
"They would have a much better way of talking about this story," Gibbs said, "rather than simply kind of landing on the, 'Well if this happened, then we'll look at it' sounds exceedingly passive to me."
Gibbs also likened Obama's "losing patience" approach to scolding a child, as noted by the Washington Examiner:
"The problem is this — the tenor of this briefing would be different if the president had spoken about this on Saturday or Sunday and not on Monday," Gibbs explained shortly after Carney struggled to answer reporters' questions in the White House press briefing.
Gibbs added that Obama sounded like he was "losing patience" with the issue "which is what I do with my 9-year-old."
Gibbs explained that Obama should have used "more vivid" language and proposed a tough commission to look at the issue while waiting for the Inspector General to release his report on the scandal.