WH Pool Report: Live with the Boats Edition

When reporters have a hard time getting the president to answer questions, they often write about how hard it is to get him to answer questions. Wonkette fellow traveller Ryan Lizza attempts to get around this navel gazing with some excerpts from recent pool reports illustrating the futility of a Bush press op. One of these excerpts points up Bush's own brazen inanity: "At one point, President Bush addressed an AP writer, referring to the young volunteers he had watched: 'Put this on the wire. These people are from all over the country.'" A meaningless quote from the President. At least it's brief. The same can't be said for a report from the NYT's Elisabeth Bumiller:

1. We're now in a hold in the boathouse/garage/guest house of the home of Jack Donahue, the president's host, where we are looking out at Gordon Pass, which flows from the Gulf of Mexico out into the Gordon River. I have no idea what the main house looks like, but I would be perfectly happy to live with the boats. The architecture of the boat /guest house is stone and stucco, with a wooden slate roof; it's new and it looks really expensive. Donahue is the chairman and founder of Federated Investors, Inc., a Pittsburgh based investment management firm that at the end of 2003 was managing $198 billion, three-fourths of it in money market funds. He has 13 children, 84 grandchildren and 8 great grandchildren. I think his house is on the Gulf -- I can't imagine it's not -- but it's hard to tell from my vantage point. My view is framed by sea grape and palms. Right now I am looking across Gordon Pass to Keewaydin Island, which is edged by mangrove trees. The water is a lovely blue-green; the Secret Service has spotted a manatee.

Lizza notes that this "captures how useless it often is to travel with Bush." Well, yes. It does capture something useless.

 THE GLAMOROUS LIFE OF THE WHITE HOUSE PRESS CORPS [Campaign Journal]