“Well, isn’t this cozy?”
That’s how White House Press Secretary Tony Snow began his press briefing on Monday, after the news media was moved out of the White House complex for the first time in more than a century.
Some reporters found the temporary quarters near Lafayette Park more comfortable than their old digs inside the West Wing, which are undergoing a long overdue renovation.
“I actually have more room now,” one newspaper reporter marveled, after luxuriating in his relatively expansive workspace.
“Yeah, but this looks suspiciously permanent,” groused another journalist, who worried that the press will never be readmitted to the West Wing.
Yet President Bush and C-SPAN’s Steve Scully, president of the White House Correspondents Association, have both said reporters would be allowed to return to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. as soon as workers gut and rebuild the James S. Brady Briefing Room and adjacent press work area. The official timetable is nine months, but the press is already convinced it will take at least a year, given the lengthy delays in setting up the temporary quarters at Jackson Place.
The new quarters contain designated workspaces and briefing room seats for dozens of news organizations that regularly cover the White House, including The Examiner.
