Tag Archives: Air Force One

Grateful to be privileged

We all have a lot to be grateful for here. By “here” I mean whatever you want it to mean.

On Sunday I got to do something that comes as a benefit of doing this job. There was no particular news value to going to watch Air Force One land in Seattle and to see the President Barack Obama come off the plane. My attendance at the event probably didn’t add anything special for the people of Kitsap County who I write for. Joel Connelly of the Seattle P-I and Jim Brunner of the Seattle Times will be writing the local stuff for the Seattle market, telling what they can about President Obama’s visit. All I got to do was go out and film his arrival. In fact, by the time you read this he will probably have already left.

So why did I go?

Because I can.

I’m a sort of political geek. I’m not the best at poly sci trivia or guessing from one strategy to the next, but there’s something about governance and the quest for it that intrigues me. And when you’re the kind of political nerd I am, being able to see a president is akin to owning a Ken Griffey rookie card.

On Friday I got an email inviting me to go attend the president’s arrival. I usually ignore those things, for the reasons above. There is nothing for Kitsap County residents that I can necessarily get at one of those events. That was especially true today, because he wasn’t even greeted by anyone local, not even Gov. Jay Inslee, whose permanent home is on Bainbridge Island. U.S. Rep. Derek Kilmer, our congressman, wasn’t there either. For $16,000 you might have been able to go see him speak at a couple of wealthy Democrats’ homes over on the other side of the water.

For reasons I still haven’t processed when I got this email I decided to ask my bosses if I could go. I got the OK and sent my RSVP.

There is some rationale for making the trek that does have some bearing on residents of Kitsap County. I make the case that most residents of Washington don’t have any less access to the information they want and need than I do. We reporters learn how to get at information quicker, but generally you have just as much right to see it as we do.

This, however, was not a public event. They invited media. And I have a hunch that there are a few hundred people in Kitsap County who if given the opportunity to go do something as simple as I did, filming the arrival of the president, would jump at it. Furthermore, they might even be upset at the likes of me for continually ignoring those invites. So to some degree, some of what I did today was for them.

Don’t accuse me of overstating that. I went for my own benefit. Before Sunday I had seen three candidates who would become president, but never an actual president (Unless you count kind of seeing Ronald Reagan through the windows of his limousine on a dark night). Well, now that I went on Sunday, I can no longer say that. It was kind of important to me. I’m nerdy that way. As we approach Thanksgiving on Thursday, I’m thankful that I now have had the opportunity I had today, that we live in a place where this privilege exists and that I have the job that I do.

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POTUS pool report ends on a sexy note

When there is limited press availability for certain events we resort to pool reports. It’s one occasion where competing news organizations cooperate with each other. One reporter gets assigned to cover the event and share notes with other press outlets. I loved the one we got from Thursday’s visit by President Obama. Read it and afterward I’ll share some other stuff about pool reports. Today’s report comes from Jim Brunner of the Seattle Times.

At Seattle’s Paramount Theatre, Pres. was introduced by Suzanne Black, a biology teacher at Inglemoor High School in Kenmore.

Ms. Black related how she was diagnosed in Mar. 2005 with stage 4 ovarian cancer. “Instead of writing tests or grading them I found myself facing one of the toughest of my life,” she said. After a long stint of chemotherapy she got a letter from insurer saying she’d already used about three fourths of her $1m lifetime cap of insurance benefits.

Three weeks later Obama signed the health care law, ending those caps. “So today I realized my dream of being able to say to someone who truly represents us — or as my students would say — someone who has my back President Obama – thank you.”

The President entered to a standing ovation and lengthy applause from the crowd of 2000. He called Black’s story the kind of thing you “don’t read in newspapers.” He recognized most of the Democratic electeds on hand, including “soon to be Governor Jay Inslee.”

Like in his earlier speech, the president did not lead with gay marriage – he spoke mostly of the economy and the contrast between him and Republican Mitt Romney.

Pres. introduced Romney as “a patriotic American” who has raised a “wonderful family.” POTUS said Romney should “be proud of the success he’s had as CEO of a large financial firm” — drawing snickers from the crowd. But, POTUS said, Romney assumes that when CEOs get rich “the rest of us automatically do too.”

POTUS mocked Republicans as offering nothing new “There is nothing you’ve heard from them where you said ‘man, I didn’t think of that – that’s fresh, that’s new.”

Sticking to a theme of “moving forward,” POTUS contrasted his plans to spend money on infrastructure and education with the Republicans, who he said would rather just give tax cuts to the rich.

Finally, more than 22 minutes into the speech, POTUS got to the reddest (locally raised, grass fed) meat for the liberal crowd, declaring he would not “go backwards” on health care reform and abortion rights.

And he directly endorsed Washington’s gay marriage law, taking sides in the likely Nov vote on Ref 74. Pres. told the crowd: “We are moving forward to a country where every American is treated with dignity and respect, and here in Washington you’ll have the chance to make your voice heard on the issue of making sure that everybody, regardless of sexual orientation, is treated fairly.”

Much applause ensued.

After the half-hour speech, POTUS and motorcade zipped back south on I-5 to Boeing Field, and Air Force One lifted off just after 4 p.m. for California and the fundraiser at George Clooney’s house. I am told he is an actor who is sexy.

If you’re like me, it’s the ending that got me the most. I also liked the parenthetical comment within “red meat.”

Being with the Kitsap Sun, one of the smaller press outlets in the Puget Sound region, I’ve pretty much accepted that I probably won’t be invited to be the pool reporter at something like what we had today, a sitting U.S. President campaigning or visiting the area. If he comes to Bremerton it might be different, but as much as I’d love to do it, I’m not getting the nod for anything in Seattle. We do sometimes fight for that role when there is a particular local angle, but this occasion was not one of those.

I did get an invite to go see Air Force One land and take off. I would have loved to have done that. But it would have been the equivalent of journalism tourism. I saw the plane anyway. I saw a Tweet that the plan was taxiing at Boeing so I went outside and noticed there was no air traffic. Then a single jumbo airliner rose in the sky. I could tell it was white. I couldn’t quite make out the light blue, but I think I saw it. It made a turn and looked like it was going to Clooney’s house.

And not long after that I started seeing lots of airplanes. So I’m pretty sure I saw the president fly by and I didn’t have to endure the hassle of a Secret Service security check.

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