Opinion: The glamorous life of White House correspondents -- some days the press waits and waits
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To those outside the Beltway, the life of a White House correspondent might appear pretty impressive. There’s all that closeness to those in power, the accommodations and, of course, the grand sense of history at the White House.
Well, sometimes the powerful aren’t that close, the accommodations aren’t comfy and the atmosphere isn’t always grand. There’s lots of waiting.
As Exhibit A we offer the photo above of members of the White House press corps listening as President Obama addressed Congress on Capitol Hill on Sept. 9. As Exhibit B we offer a pool report filed this morning by Carol Lee of Politico:
Pool report #1 - 10/8The OTR that never happened.Pool was notified shortly around 10:15 a.m. to gather, that POTUS was making an unscheduled in-town stop. Pool then held in the idling motorcade waiting for POTUS on the south driveway for over an hour. Pool was not told where POTUS was supposed to go, but was advised to leave bags behind. About 15 minutes before POTUS’s scheduled noon lunch with business execs, pool was informed that the OTR stop was cancelled.POTUS’s motorcade was shorter than usual, roughly 10 vehicles -- Suburbans and vans -- and there was no presidential limo.Side note: Some East Wing staff, including Desiree Rogers, was on the South Lawn when pool first loaded the motorcade around 10:30 a.m. They appeared to be coordinating the set-up for an event. A truck with “HDO Productions’ and ‘Tents for Events’ written on it was parked on the driveway.
Just makes you rush to Washington, no?
-- Steve Padilla
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