Michael Calderone at Politico passes along that Barack Obama arrived to cheers at the Washington Post headquarters in downtown DC, just blocks north of the White House, and he quoted a "priceless pool report" by Helene Cooper, the newly appointed White House reporter for the New York Times:
After three and a half hours at his transition office, PEOTUS obama took another 6 minute ride through washington, arriving at 157 pm at the nondescript soviet-style building at 15th and L street that houses the washington post.
Around 100 people – Post reporters perhaps? – awaited PEOTUS's arrival, cheering and bobbing their coffee cups.
Pool is holding in a van outside, while Mr obama does his washington post interview, and will exercise enormous restraint by ending report before saying what really thinks about this turn of events.
Calderone guesses the cattiness about the Post cheers could be sour grapes because Obama has not yet granted a pre-Inauguration interview to the New York Times.
Unlike recent White House occupants — such as George W. Bush and Bill Clinton — Obama has yet to provide The Times with the sort of free-wheeling, pre-Inauguration interview the paper’s come to expect. And there's little expectation it will happen before Tuesday.
“We would certainly like it to happen,” said Times political editor Dick Stevenson, “but the days are running short at this point.”
Stevenson said that although The Times has put in multiple requests to the Obama team, and “pointed out the historical precedent for this,” they’ve had no luck securing a sit-down.
