WH Pool Report: Dumb Show in New Orleans
In this White House pool report, Elisabeth Bumiller continues her try-out for Architectural Digest correspondent:
Bush will be lit with warm tungsten lighting, but the statue and cathedral will be illuminated with much brighter, brighter lights, along nothing like the candlepower that DeServi and Sforza used on Sept. 11, 2002, to light up the Statue of Liberty for Bush's speech in New York Harbor.
Here's a quote from DeServi on the lit up cathedral: "Oh, it's heated up. It's going to print loud.''
At least they're admitting it's theater.
Full report after the jump.
From: Press.Releases@WhiteHouse.Gov
Subject: POOL REPORT #4, 9/15/05
Date: September 15, 2005 8:45:43 PM EDT
Reply-To: Press.Releases@WhiteHouse.Gov
Pool Report #4, 9/15/05
Your pool was just taken for a look-see of the speech site in Jackson Square; we'll be in the vans when the president speaks, so we agitated and got the 10-minute tour. It was worth it. The president will be positioned at a podium set up in the grass in the square, with a statute of Andrew Jackson astride his horse and St. Louis Cathedral in the background. Bobby DeServi and Scott Sforza were on hand as we drove up about 8 p.m. or so EDT handling last-minute details of the stagecraft. Bush will be lit with warm tungsten lighting, but the statue and cathedral will be illuminated with much brighter, brighter lights, along nothing like the candlepower that DeServi and Sforza used on Sept. 11, 2002, to light up the Statue of Liberty for Bush's speech in New York Harbor.
Here's a quote from DeServi on the lit up cathedral: "Oh, it's heated up.
It's going to print loud.''
Bush will be hidden from street view by a large swatch of military camouflage netting, held in place by bags of rocks and strung up on poles, if I remember correctly. The grass in the square is lush and green and there are bunches of palm trees.
The French Quarter itself is eerie and desolate. The streets around Jackson Square and in the French Quarter -- normally crowded in the evenings with artists, mimes, palm readers, street musicians, panhandlers, tourists and locals in seersucker business suits -- are boarded up and deserted.
We went back to the Iwo Jima and picked up the president.
Now, 8: 39 p.m: We just motorcaded with the president from the Iwo Jima through pitch black streets to Jackson Square. Not a light anywhere but an occasional ambulance. Still, members of the 82nd airborne, in fatigues and red berets, have been standing in total dark at the street corners saluting the president as his motorcade passed.
The only life I've seen was at a parking lot on Decatur Street, where big tents with food have been set up for the National Guard, who were lining up to eat when we passed earlier without the president.
Now holding in van. Not sure what happens next, if we go somewhere else or we stay here. From this vantage point, I can see nothing but the back of Doug Mills' head.
Elisabeth Bumiller
NYT