No local media will be allowed at President Obama’s noonish $7,500-a-plate fundraiser at the W Hotel. Instead, coverage will be restricted to the usual pool of Washington-based reporters traveling with the president. The White House will circulate a transcript of his speech to the locals later.
Add: Longtime White House watchers, including some former press secretaries, tell the Chronicle’s Joe Garofoli the Obama tactic may be unprecedented, and at the least some are calling it insular and short-sighted.
Noted: Ex-George W. Bush press secretary Nicolle Wallace calls it “idiotic . . . inexplicable on the politics side, let alone the press side.” Democrats are saying the same thing, only more gently.
