TIPS FROM THE POOL…INTO THE DEEP END

NYT White House Correspondent Jackie Calmes, who has been covering President Obama’s fundraiser at actor George Clooney‘s home for the past 24 hours, issued an early morning Pool Report after calling a photo-travel lid at 2:32 a.m. Calmes wrote the new report (#11) to correct what was supposed to be an amusing anecdote the President told at last night’s soirée regarding his Hope poster and Clooney being photoshopped out of a picture. In her report she quote’s the AP’s Jim Kuhnhenn, who clears up the error.

“According to the AP and its White House reporter, fellow pooler Jim Kuhnhenn, Potus erred on Thursday night in telling donors at George Clooney’s house his anecdote about the iconic ‘Hope’ poster of the 2008 presidential campaign. Potus said artist Shepard Fairey had based his design on a photo in which then-Sen. Obama appeared alongside Clooney at an event on the humanitarian crisis in Darfur (leading Potus to quip that it was the first and last time that Clooney had ever been ‘photo-shopped’ from a photo).

Here’s how Jim describes the reality:
‘In fact, the artist who created the poster, Shepard Fairey, used another photograph of Obama but said he relied on the Obama-Clooney picture to avoid a copyright infringement case with The Associated Press. He pleaded guilty in February to criminal contempt for fabricating and destroying evidence.’”