August 3, 2006
Notes

Typical Patterns

(click to expand)

Raddatz-Pattern

I know I promised you the next interview,

Martha, but have you gotta make it

so obvious?

  Bush-Brady-Pattern

Yep, Brady took one for the Gipper —

just like Snow, I’m sure, would do for me.

Bush-Thomas-Pattern

Yeah. Tell Colbert I’m waiting for him.

Laura-Press2

And Laura especially wanted to

commemorate this occasion.

* * * *

“You want to double the size?  Forget it.”

      –GDub to reporters, on plans for the

new White House press room

* * * *

I’m sorry, but Bush himself showing up yesterday morning to shut down the White House press room?  (And the star-struck reporters — wowed by the former Press Secretaries — falling all over themselves?)  It was like 2003 all over again.

However, the WAPO story on the immediate closing of the room leaves a few questions unanswered.  I wouldn’t imagine the Administration would exploit the situation to further narrow press access, but….

According to the article:

The briefing room and accompanying press offices are to be torn down starting next week to make way for a complete renovation, with high-tech accessories that may take seven to nine months or more to complete.

Love that “may take.”  Who’s the contractor?  Halliburton?  Or, perhaps they pulled the Bechtel team that was working on that

hospital in Basra.  Sure, most construction timelines have  variability, but you think these guys are in any hurry?  Reports the Washington Times, the job “was first supposed to take six months, then seven and now nine.”


A temporary press facility is hastily being completed across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House and will house the media until the new briefing room is built.

What’s this “hastily” business?  I know they had no plans for a post-invasion Iraq, but are you telling me they didn’t anticipate tearing down the press room?  Unless the board of health suddenly condemned the place (which seems possible), why would they possibly pull the plug without new digs at the ready?

It will be no bigger than the old room but the aim is to make it more efficient for the heavy traffic.

Oh, now that’s clever.  The old place — by consensus — was painfully small.  So the temporary space is the same size?

With all those monitors and other high tech equipment going in, I thought some commemorative test patterns might be in order — just to remember “the good old days.”



(image 1 & 3: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters.  August 2, 2006.  Washington.  Via YahooNews.  image 2: Scott Applewhite/AP.  August 2, 2006.  Via YahooNews.  image 3: name/agency.  August 2, 2006.  Via YahooNews.  image 4: Jim Watson/AFP.  August 2, 2006.  Via YahooNews.)

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Michael Shaw
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