Word out of the West Wing today that the White House (surprise, surprise) caved to the incredibly stupid plan it had hatched with NBC to provide Today's Ann Curry with exclusive access to the First Lady's trip to Africa next month.

After a day of frantic and furious calls, emails, and conferences, this trip will run like basically every other White House trip. Thus NBC will travel but the video will be pooled for everyone else too.

"Laura Bush has a new press person who obviously doesn't understand how pool rotation works," one senior network source told us today.

FLOTUS press secretary Susan Dryden Whitson probably never saw that freight train coming.