Not Even Reporters Paid to Travel With Bush Want to Know What He’s Doing

Some of you may have been following the recent “donnybrook”, first reported by FishbowlDC, over the White House Correspondents Association’s decision to limit pool report access to those reporters actually traveling with the President. Basically, says FBDC, “you don’t pay, you don’t play…Namely, only those reporters whose news organizations have ponied up the money to accompany the president on domestic and foreign trips will receive the pool reports.”

This is going to be a problem for smaller papers who, as Politico pointed out in March, depend on the pool reports in the wake of widespread budget cuts. Why this sudden change of rules you ask? Well, according to WHCA President Ann Compton the move was in part due to “decreased interest in President Bush’s recent trips.” [Emphasis ours.] File under “Life and Times of a Lame Duck” we suppose. Wait! Here’s an idea, why doesn’t Obama jack up his air fare prices and once he’s finished paying off Hillary’s debt donate the rest to the Air Force One fund.

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