West Wing Reportage

If you're certain White House reporters, the answer could be lunch with President Obama...

Politico reports that CNN's David Gergen, WaPo's Chris Cillizza, Newsweek's Jon Meacham and Howard Fineman, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Cynthia Tucker, Politico's Mike Allen, NPR/Fox's Mara Liasson, TPM's Josh Marshall and NYT's David Brooks, Andy Rosenthal, and Gail Collins joined the President, David Axelrod, Anita Dunn, Bill Burton and Robert Gibbs for an off-the-record lunch today.

Lunch apparently lasted two hours and green salad, halibut and pear tart were served.

No wonder there's so many speculated cases of swine flu among the White House press corps...

Today during press secretary Robert Gibbs' daily briefing, a reporter sneezed-- but not into her elbow, as the press corps had previously been advised by HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to do so.

"You're screwed Ann, just FYI," Gibbs joked with ABC radio's Ann Compton, who sits near the sneezer.

C-SPAN has the video here (scroll to about 21 mins in).

Notes from a briefing room press insider...

Yep. What She Said: In an abbreviated briefing today (running against the seventh of the big Sit Room Af-Pak strategy meetings), Press Secretary Robert Gibbs backed Secy Hillary Clinton's sharp comments yesterday that she finds it "hard to believe" that Pakistan couldn't find al Qaeda if they really wanted to, calling Clinton's remarks "completely appropriate." Of today's strategy meeting, RG said he certainly has not been told it's the last; it is indicative the assessment is "nearing its conclusion"; there is no next meeting scheduled (but there could be one next week); and the decision "certainly could come earlier" than the Nov. 7 runoff, "but I don't anticipate that it would."

Econ with Prof. Gibbs: The WH's rollout of Recovery Act recipient reports showing 640,329 saved/created jobs had several reporters embarking on math lessons. "Can we get a blackboard in here?" CBS Radio's Mark Knoller asked while Fox's Major Garrett tried to square numbers on WH reports of Cash for Clunkers and Recovery Act contributions to the GDP--to which RG said he'd have to check but called a truce by having Major agree that the economy was growing. "And some coffee?" NYT's Jeff Zeleny pleaded. (No coffee cart, but the class did get to pick from a bowl of Halloween candy served by the press office before RG's briefing.)

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FishbowlDC Exclusive:The White House Correspondents Association (WHCA) board late last month discussed a proposal to post pool reports written by reporters on its own website, seizing control from the White House, which has long distributed the reports.

The issue has been a dicey one over the years. During the George W. Bush administration, the White House refused to say who was on the distribution list of more than 1,000, which included lobbyists and government officials across town.

Why, board members asked during the meeting, do the pool reports still go through the filter of the White House press office? White House veteran George Condon of Congress Daily, called to appear because of his knowledge on the issue, explained that it started with the Eisenhower administration when poolers used carbon paper. It was simply faster to have the official White House stenographers help get the information out.

But the practice continued into the Internet age, and, despite the ease of group mailing, reporters traveling in a tight pool with the president still send their reports directly to the White House, which forwards them to reporters.

The board discussed whether it would be feasible to post pool reports on the WHCA website for reporters to access, which means the WHCA -- not the White House -- would decide who can view them. No decision was made, but the board agreed to have an association "town hall" to discuss how to change the pool report guidelines.

One little tidbit that emerged during the meeting also involved the pool, but concerned who should remain in the small group in the case of a national emergency.

Condon noted that on 9/11, the Bush White House shrunk the press pool from 12 members to five, causing controversy. When that happened, former President Bill Clinton apparently called Ron Fournier of the AP to reveal that the Bush WH had invoked the "nuclear bunker pool."

Nobody in the press had heard of such a special pool and nothing ever came of it. Condon suggested outlining guidelines before the next crisis.

The WHCA, which voted to raise the cost of the annual dinner to $225 per seat, also decided to continue its tradition of having a holiday party.

A very reliable source tells FishbowlDC that Fox News SVP Michael Clemente met with White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs this morning and reached what some are calling a "truce."

Clemente then met with the FNC Washington bureau and encouraged staff to remain "fair and balanced."

Notes from a briefing room press insider...

About that Af-Pak Strategy...: Press Secretary Robert Gibbs' late entrance into the briefing room (ahem, 35 minutes after originally scheduled...) was welcomed by a brief audio clip from the back of the room that declared in a booming voice, "The President is powerful" -- likely a prank by our dear tech troublemakers that drew all the deserved giggles from the corps and the podium. But the dialogue quickly turned to more serious matters as RG responded to the sharp uptick in Af-Pak violence and countered continued charges that POTUS is moving too slowly on the troop decision. "I certainly wouldn't agree with Sen. McCain on that," he said in reaction to the former POTUS rival's criticism, adding that he thought the American people were on the side of the WH. POTUS meets with the joint chiefs Friday; while RG said yesterday that that is a signal the process is "certainly toward the end," today he reaffirmed the "several weeks away" line (that he's alternately been spouting with "coming weeks" for, well, the last several weeks).

How Much for that Lincoln Bedroom?: Today's Wash Times feature on WH perks showered on DNC contributors clearly piqued the interest of other WH reporters, who hammered away at the month-old WH announcement on visitor's log releases and asked whether it was true that money could buy a trip to the WH bowling alley, for instance. RG, who continuously used the "most transparent administration" tack to downplay the premise of the questions, argued that it was unreasonable to expect that such contributors -- many who are long-time POTUS pals -- to not have access to the WH, which he said has welcomed over 400,000 since January. Reports on WH visitors are set to be released later this year, with quarterly documents revealing the "who/when/how long/who met with" of each visit. In the interest of full disclosure, RG noted that "Ethan Gibbs, with the bumpers down, bowled a couple of games while eating some chicken fingers." (No one asked Ethan's score.)

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Last week, we posted a poll asking you to weigh in on the White House war with Fox News. The response was overwhelming - both in the number of folks that responded as well as the outcome. Based on our poll, only 21% of you thought that Obama's attack on Fox News was appropriate presidential behavior.

The debate continued this weekend on CNN's "Reliable Sources" with Howard Kurtz. HuffPo's Nico Pitney, TWT's Amanda Carpenter and Jane Hall, a former FNC contributor, joined Kurtz to hash out the topic further.

Not surprisingly, Pitney said that taking on Fox News was the right thing to do. "If the Republican National Committee had a television network, how would it be any different?" he argued.

While Hall said, the battle makes the White House "look like a bunch of whiners."

The White House's war on/with Fox News has triggered a huge range of reactions in the media. WaPo's Ruth Marcus wrote "Obama's dumb war with Fox News" which got overwhelming response on wapo.com and Facebook.

Politico's Mike Allen & Josh Gerstein analyze why the WH press corps has had little reaction to the attempts to delegitimize the cable network.

ABC's Jake Tapper questioned WH Press Secretary Robert Gibbs about how they could declare that Fox News was not a "news" organization. Gibbs' response, "that's our opinion." FNC's Sean Hannity said, "It seems like the White House is developing an enemies list."

MoveOn.org launched a petition to urge Dems to stay off Fox News.

The Daily Beast's Nicole Wallace writes "Obama's attacks on Fox News are petty and childish." And I couldn't agree more, Nicole.

By supporting the President's selective media engagement, you cripple the power of the industry. And while it may work in your favor now, it sets a precedent that can and will backfire in the future. But it's not about my opinion, so you weigh in. Is this "White House war with Fox News" appropriate presidential behavior?

Notes from a briefing room press insider...

The T-Word: In a rare morning on-camera briefing, Press Secy Robert Gibbs tag-teamed with Jared Bernstein and Melody Barnes, chief WH economic and domestic policy advisors, respectively, to tout 250,000 saved/created education jobs reported under the Recovery Act. The announcement faced a skeptical press room (esp. on the lack of clarity on "saved" v. "created" numbers), and generated "transparency" contagion, originating with JB remarks -- including that he "never contemplated this level of transparency" in local/state reporting to the RAT (independent Recovery Accountability and Transparency board). Capitalizing on the t-word, ABC's Jake Tapper asked about the transparency of the health care debate (RG: "I do think the administration has been transparent") and NBC's Chuck Todd followed later with, "And this goes to the whole transparency question that Jake asked" to introduce a public option question that met with RG's "I shockingly don't have a lot new on this." On bank bonuses, Bloomberg's Hans Nichols questioned whether, "in the interest of transparency," RG could discuss WH convos with banks reported to be ready to dole out excessive bonuses. RG said he didn't know "who has talked to whom on this."

Axe-ing Fox: In more colorful comments today, RG continued to engage the Fox/WH wars by elaborating on top advisor David Axelrod's Sunday comments. As for Axe charging that Fox is just trying to make money, RG clarified: "I assume all of you are trying to make money, but maybe I have misinterpreted your otherwise altruistic ventures." Landing the conversation-ending uppercut, RG observed of the targeted network, "Sometimes programming can be tilted toward accentuating the most profits." Ouch.

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According to today's pool report, President Obama saw "Where the Wild Things Are" yesterday...

At one point, he noted that just yesterday he had seen Spike Jonze's movie adaptation of the classic children's book, "Where the Wild Things Are." The First Movie Critic said "That's a great book" and proclaimed of the movie, "It's worth seeing."

This was during a visit to Viers Mill Elementary School in Silver Spring today. The President also told students he read the book as a kid.