Newsroom Meeting for the New President

Graham introduced Obama to Walter Pincus, saying the reporter had been covering the CIA for decades.

Obama asked a pregnant woman when she was due. "I hear Barack's a good name," he said. Obama also posed for a picture with an electrician who has worked at the paper for half a century.

While the environment seemed safe enough, a Secret Service agent ordered national security editor Carlos Lozada to take his hands out of his pockets.

One of the pool reporters, Helene Cooper of the New York Times, seemed less than enthusiastic about the incursion into Post land. She wrote that Obama arrived "at 157 pm at the nondescript soviet-style building at 15th and L street that houses the washington post." All right, it's no architectural prize, but at least we haven't had to mortgage our headquarters like a certain Manhattan-based newspaper.

A joke in Cooper's report quickly ricocheted to the Drudge Report. Surveying the scene on the street, she wrote that "around 100 people--Post reporters perhaps?--awaited PEOTUS's arrival, cheering and bobbing their coffee cups." For the record, eyewitnesses say these were just onlookers from nearby buildings. But Matt Drudge depicted it thusly in a red-ink headline: "'CHEERING AT THE WASHINGTON POST FOR OBAMA ARRIVAL."

Inside, as Obama finally came full circle around the warren of offices and cubicles, he declared: "All right, back to work!" And he had correctly analyzed the situation: All work in The Post newsroom had stopped.

Does the episode, which some staffers muttered was a tad embarrassing, mean the paper's staff has a soft spot for Obama? Not really. It means that when an extremely famous and soon to be very powerful person shows up at the office, journalists act like people everywhere. They gawk.

Playing to the Pundits

From 7:30 a.m.

If you think the chattering classes were chattering about the Osama tape or the fate of the second $350 billion in bailout money yesterday, let me enlighten you.

It was all about the dinner party.

To wit, which members of the conservative commentariat were invited to dine with Obama? How did it go? Who was left off the list? Why on earth did he do it? What about his base?

There was no shortage of buzz after the election about how Barack would use his digital prowess and donor lists to bypass the hopelessly passé MSM and communicate directly with the public. Well, maybe. But the events of the past 36 hours show that he is paying his respects to the college of media cardinals. Here's my report: