Stateside: Rosalea’s Big Day Out In D.C.

See Also Rosalea's Coverage Of The PM's Visit To Washington:

• Scoop Audio: (Day 2 - Part 1) – Inside The Oval Office
• Scoop Audio & Images: (Day 2 - Part 2) - Helen Clark answers media questions after meeting with US president Bush
• Scoop Audio & Images: (Day 1 Part 1) – Asia Society Luncheon & Standup
• Scoop Audio & Images: (Day 1 Part 2) – USNZ Council Evening Standup
• FULL COVERAGE: New Zealand PM's State Visit To USA

The buildings are all much smaller than they seem to be on the telly. The scale of the West Wing, at least, is really no bigger than that of a family home.

The annex that links the White House to the West Wing contains the indoor swimming pool where JFK allegedly had his trysts with Marilyn Monroe. The pool has been covered over since those days, and the annex is now used as a break room for the media encampment that is permanently lined up along the driveway to the west wing. It’s being renovated just now, so workmen with colored tags hanging from their hard hats, escorted always by someone official, squeeze their way past our mini encampment close to the West Wing portico where the PM’s Q&A with the media will take place after her lunch with President Bush.

I notice as we wait for the PM’s car to arrive that, despite the obvious orderliness of everything, there’s a piece of trash, a candy bar wrapper, discarded on the lawn just over the iron railing fence that curves alongside the path leading off to our left, where the White House is. We walk along that path later, to first an outdoor, then an indoor, staging area where we're assembled in order of importance... Kleig lamp first, then domestic videographers, foreign videographers, people allowed to have cameras—which doesn’t include anyone in the NZ media pool except for the official photographer—and print media (“scribblers”) last.

Internet is considered print, so I find myself at the back of the crowd as we’re moved in a stop-start sequence around the edge of the lawn known for its rose garden to the part of the West Wing that contains the Cabinet Room and the oval-shaped office adjoining it. Peering through the Oval Office window while waiting to enter, I see a portrait of Abe Lincoln and a swarm of people three thick in a horse-shoe formation facing Bush and Clark, who are sitting in chairs on either side of the fireplace.

Click for big version

The Prime Minister with President Bush in the Oval Office of the White House, Wednesday March 21, 2007. – MFAT Image

I can’t see either Bush or Clark when I finally get inside because I’ve managed to get myself positioned behind the huge shade of the table lamp on Bush’s left side, but I guess that’s why the scribblers enter last—their ears are expected to be their eyes, and it’s assumed they’ll be jotting down the leaders' words of wit and wisdom as fast as their inky nibs will let them.

Words like: “In fact, we got along so well that I invited her to lunch.” Which elicited a polite titter from somewhere in the room. Out of despair, all the groans it also elicited were silent... no doubt the president says that every time a leader comes by for a meeting that has been scheduled months in advance, including the lunch.

I turn and look to my left, towards the garden end of the room, and there is Dick Cheney, looking for all the world like someone's benevolent uncle. Which, no doubt, he is, just like all those folks in Arlington's fresh graves are someone's beloved uncle or aunt or daughter or son.

Standing behind dumpling-round Cheney, is rhubarb-thin Tony Snow, former Fox newsman, now Press Secretary for the White House. I learn later, from one of the State Department minders assigned to escort us, that Presidential Counselor Dan Bartlett was there in the room too. Apparently, whoever is present at the time of any meeting with a foreign dignitary always comes out into the Oval Office while the photo op takes place. The minder asked me if Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was there as well. Perhaps so, hidden by the crowd.

Because of the speed with which the media is thrust into the room and thrust back out again, there was really nothing special about having been in the Oval Office in the presence of the self-styled leader of the free world, now my President.

My freshly minted status as a U.S. citizen caught up with me later though at the wreath laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Perhaps it was the rush of blood and oxygen to my head as a result of the mountain-goat sprint we had to do to get to the top of the steps when the PM arrived earlier than expected from her meeting with Defense Secretary Gates, but a great big tear of sorrow rolled down my cheek as Clark stepped forward with her hands on the wreath.

Click for big version

Prime Minister Helen Clark And A Guard At Honour At Arlington Cemetery War Memorial – MFAT Image

The (presumably) Secret Service woman in the short purple skirt and tall boots, her puffy down North Face vest no doubt hiding the heat she was packing, must have noticed the emotion, because she kept me in close sight for the rest of our time there. When Clark stepped up for questions from the media later and I squeezed in close so my tiny mic could catch the PM's softly spoken answers, Ms Secret Service moved in on me and asked who I was.

Kerry, our MFAT liaison, quietly assured her that I was part of the press. I can’t speak highly enough of the excellent job Kerry did of intervening at all the right moments to smooth the way, or get us everywhere on time. No doubt she was helped by a bunch of unseen folks back at the embassy, but her on-the-spot savvy was what mattered most on the day. There is a reason it's called the diplomatic service.

Journalists and cameramen are, of course, the exact opposite, and the experience of being driven around DC all day in a limo van that was fair crackling with the sharp tang of irreverence was worth every frustration I endured to get over to DC after my original travel plans were cancelled because of the weather last weekend.

Severely limited by the restrictions the White House places on the number of video cameras that can go in the Oval Office, Sky missed out, and TV1 and TV3 pooled their resources so that one got a wide shot and the other got the close-ups.

Thinking there might be a chance for questions—it’s up to Bush's whim at the time whether there will be—reporters worked out a game plan so that their individual questions could stand alone as viewed, but complemented each other in terms of drawing out the subject matter. [no questions were taken.]

On gigs like this, there’s a lot of standing around waiting for people to arrive and get out of a car and pretend that you’re not there, but there is very little thumb twiddling. Scribblers and radio reporters are busy working up their story and phoning it in; cameramen are reviewing or planning shots with the TV reporters. And if all else fails, there’s the wildlife.

While we were waiting for Clark's arrival at the Pentagon, the hit distraction once we’d seen the color guard rehearsal a couple of times was the video the Sky cameraman had taken earlier, when he was excluded from the White House.

It showed a squirrel enthusiastically scratching itself, its little back leg a whirr of motion. I wish I’d been able to snap a pic of the omen-ous capture of a tiny bird by the hawk that roosts in a tree by the foot of the steps leading to that unknown soldier’s tomb. It would have perfectly illustrated the day I went to the White House to see the Prime Minister of New Zealand meet with the President of the United States.

Rosalea.barker@gmail.com

--PEACE—

© Scoop Media