For a time, I was one of those reporters who gaggled around a senior official (Clinton’s USDA secretary) like electrons swirling around the nucleus of one of Rutherford’s atoms. When you’re busy following someone “important” around, you have lots of time on your hands. Thankfully, as a wire service reporter with a beat bigger than the agriculture secretary, I actually had other things to do most of the time. But waiting could be maddening sometimes.
The few times I had to go to the White House for anything, I pitied the White House press corps. Their digs are a dump, and too small to boot. (Or, as Daffy Duck once said, “this room is so small I had to go outside to change my mind.”) And they sit and wait. And wait. Until the briefing, or someone comes out, forms a pool, and takes them someplace to get a few quotes and photos — sheep being herded into another pasture. A lot of checkbooks get balanced in between briefings. And novels read (bad ones, generally). And crosswords. I’m not sure what most of the White House reporters I saw would have done without the daily crossword puzzle.
3:11 pm on October 27, 2005
