MetaFilter posts tagged with WhiteHouse

Transparency Like You've Never Seen Before

up in the old hotel — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:57:59 -0800

You like documents? We got documents:

Fox "upset-the-White-House-won't-call-it" News

ADoubtfulTrout — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 10:34:57 -0800

Fox News's bent on the news is well known, but recently the White House has begun actively excluding the network, including skipping Fox's Chris Wallace on a recent round of Sunday morning news shows. “We simply decided to stop abiding by the fiction ... that Fox is a traditional news organization.” says White House Depty Communications Director Pfeiffer (as has Press Secretary Gibbs and others). The responses range from concern about an attempt to control the media to a feeling that it's about time. Is it just about Fox's anti-Obama pundits, or is it also about Fox's consistent errors and misinformed viewership? Or is the White House attempting containment so that Fox's ratings-gold style and ideas don't take over the rest of the press?

Ten Letters a Day

XQUZYPHYR — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 16:13:35 -0800

The White House receives over 60,000 letters to the President every day. A new video from the White House briefly shows the process of selecting the ten of them that the President reads, three or four of which he writes responses to, every day.

Inside the White House

Silune — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 19:19:50 -0800

Inside the White House in 2009 - 2002 - 1993 - 1990 - 1981 - 1977 - 1971 - 1962 - 1952

White House 2.0

pyramid termite — Fri, 01 May 2009 20:23:38 -0800

It's on Facebook. It's also on MySpace. It even has a Twitter page. The White House is in the 21st century.

100 Days of Obama: the Flickr Potustream

East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 20:39:32 -0800

After one hundred days, the wait is over: Pete Souza's Gargantuan Presidential High-Definition Executive Flickrdump is here. Warning: If you put it on fullscreen you won't get anything else done for a while.

Open For Questions

dersins — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 11:06:20 -0800

Open For Questions. Metafilter's Own™ box and klangklangston "skim the White House's Open For Questions, posting the best and brightest queries the American public can manage." [via mefi projects] NB: "Best and brightest" may be used facetiously.

Grapes we can believe in

Joe Beese — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 12:59:16 -0800

The first female White House chef, a naturalized Philippina named Cristeta Comerford, was appointed by George W. Bush - who told Philippine President Gloria Arroyo, "I am reminded of the great talent of our Philippine Americans when I eat dinner at the White House." Despite the urging of American food icon Alice Waters, President Obama has left Comerford in charge of the White House kitchens - though he's keeping quiet about it. But on the basis of the wines served at Obama's Inauguration Day lunch, oenophiles are still hoping for change. (more First Food posts here and here )

A diet of sunshine

Stewriffic — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 06:17:33 -0800

Will the White House have its own farmer? Back in October, Michael Pollan called upon the president-elect to rip up a 5-acre section of the White House's south-facing lawns and hire a farmer to cultivate it. Over 55,000 Americans have nominated Claire Strader to be that farmer, if the Obamas decide to take up a new Victory Garden initiative. The question now is will they? Supporters see a White House farm as a way for the first family to address many of the issues Obama cites as a focus of his administration--economic security, public health promotion, climate change, and reducing fossil fuel dependence. Obama's position on organic and local agriculture would suggest that he might consider a White House Farmer, as does his recent decision to hire local-food proponent Sam Kass to work alongside the executive chef at the White House. Claire Strader speaks of her vision.

Wiring the Whitehouse

yoga — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 09:16:16 -0800

If you're wondering why whitehouse.gov hasn't been updated since Wednesday, it's because they're still working on bringing the Whitehouse into 2009 technologically. Will it have WiFi? Hopefully they can catch up quickly to what they were used to during the campaign.

President Barack Obama

theora55 — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 09:19:17 -0800

President Barack Obama The text of the Inaugural speech will be posted after it's completed. Change.gov is closing up shop; Change has come to Whitehouse.gov.

Dinners with Dubya

tractorfeed — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 04:39:18 -0800

C. Brian Smith gets invited to dinner at a college friend's house. The father drinks "non beer" and scolds the dog for farting. Smith remembers that he has a joint in the cigarette box in his pocket. One of the sisters "severs the tension by asking her father how many words he screwed up" during a recent speech he gave. Just another family dinner at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Oral History of the Bush White House

CunningLinguist — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 07:10:13 -0800

Farewell to All That An illuminating and depressing Oral History of the Bush White House from Vanity Fair

Sorry, We’re Booked, White House Tells Obamas

Quidam — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 19:35:13 -0800

NYT: "The White House has turned down a request from the family of President-elect Barack Obama to move into Blair House in early January so that his daughters can start school on Jan. 5." The Obamas were told that Blair House, where incoming presidents usually stay in the five days before Inauguration Day, is booked in early January, a spokesperson to the Obama transition said. “We explored the idea so that the girls could start school on schedule,’ the spokesperson said. “But, there were previously scheduled events and guests that couldn’t be displaced.” The Blair House, situated across the street from the White House, is the official state guest house for the President of the United States. Take a tour of the Blair House. Wikipedia. And where are the Obama girls going to school, anyway? To the Sidwell Friends School, apparently, which has also educated the children of Theodore Roosevelt and Bill Clinton, as well as the grandchildren of Joe Biden, albeit for as much as $29,442 a year.

Evolution of the White House

theantikitty — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 15:42:49 -0800

The White House Museum’s website offers a fascinating historical chronicle of the interior of the White House. Though the East and West wings are interesting in their own right, it is the evolution of the President’s Residence that offers the most intimate view of the tastes and lifestyles of the various first families. The White House has undergone many renovations over the years, the most recent significant one being under the watchful eye of the Clintons, who raised money for the face lift through private funds and donations. Aside from the decorative changes, the Clintons added a workout room (the sequence of photos of this room is complete with a George W. Bush workout session) and a sound proof music room where Bill could practice his sax in peace. Although the website hosts the pictorial histories of over 140 rooms in what was once aptly referred to as “The Presidential Castle” by Dolley Madison, here are a few highlights: • Once a humble cloakroom, the China Room was established by Mrs. Woodrow Wilson in 1917. It boasts a chronological succession of china that represents every former President of the United States. The gallery contains photos dating back to 1918. • The Diplomatic Reception room has greeted many important ambassadors visiting the White House. It is still decorated in the panoramic wallpaper showing various American landscapes that was selected by none other than Jackie Kennedy. Don’t miss the photo of the Roosevelts near the bottom of the page. • The Library has been decorated in an incredible variety of styles over the years, but the most interesting part of the gallery are the photographs of various Presidents there. Of timely note, FDR preparing for a Fireside Chat about halfway down the page. • The State Dining Room is, in my opinion, one of the most interesting galleries on the site. The earliest photos picture the cabinet of James Polk in 1843, and the pictorial shows the many fabulous and opulent dining rooms that guests of the White House have had the pleasure to dine in. • The Blue Room has been reinvented dozens of times over the years, and from the amount of photographs featuring Presidents and their families, it seems to have been very oft used. The computer reconstruction (in color) of the black and white photos snapped in the 1880’s (towards the bottom of the page) are absolutely incredible. The Yellow Oval Room is similar, and also hosts many interesting photographs, including the Reagans with Princess Diana & Charles in the 1980’s. • No tour would be completed without the famous Lincoln Bedroom, complete with photographs of Lincoln himself in the room. And of course, the voyeur in all of us wants to see where the President actually slept – The Master Bedroom of the White House. After seeing the many faces of the White House over the years, one has to wonder what kind of stamp the eagerly-awaited new occupants will put on the residence. According to Architectural Digest (who posted a terrific photo slideshow of the changes Nancy Reagan and Jackie Kennedy made to the White House here) every first family makes their own décor changes to the President’s Residence. *Please be aware that the links are very slow loading. The pages are packed with photos that take a bit of time to download, but they’re worth it! **The White House Museum was recently linked to in this MeFi post by Jessamyn discussing the bowling alley.

Eugene and Helene Allen

jckll — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 15:35:03 -0800

"In its long history, the White House -- just note the name -- has had a complex and vexing relationship with black Americans." A n a r t i c l e t h a t 's n o t q u i t e w h a t y o u t h i n k i t i s . Read to the end. Just make sure you have a Kleenex handy.
.

I said BOWLing at the White House...

jessamyn — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 15:47:43 -0800

Long discussed, searched for and even relocated, the White House Bowling Alley has been closed to league members since 9/11. The most avid (p)residential bowlers? Lady Bird Johnson and Richard Nixon. (his ball, previously) But what does Barack Obama think about it? "The bowling alley, I understand, offers us some potential for expansion..." [related Fox News take]

"I don't talk about techniques"

Marisa Stole the Precious Thing — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 03:30:17 -0800

In a new article in the Washington Post: "The Bush administration issued a pair of secret memos to the CIA in 2003 and 2004 that explicitly endorsed the agency's use of interrogation techniques such as waterboarding against al-Qaeda suspects". These documents were requested by then CIA director George Tenet, who told 60 Minutes last year (in conjuction with the publication of his book, In the Center of the Storm), ""The image that's been portrayed is, we sat around the campfire and said, 'Oh, boy, now we go get to torture people.' Well, we don't torture people. Let me say that again to you. We don't torture people. Okay?"

Ron Suskind Says White House Forged Iraq-Al Qaeda Letter

ericb — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 08:04:53 -0800

In his new book, 'The Way of the World' "Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ron Suskind claims that, after the Iraq war began, the White House ordered the CIA to forge a back-dated, handwritten letter from the head of Iraqi intelligence to Saddam Hussein, in an attempt to tie Hussein to the 9/11 attacks."^* Suskind writes: "'It said that 9/11 ringleader Mohammad Atta had actually trained for his mission in Iraq' and that Iraq bought yellowcake uranium from Niger with the help of al Qaeda. Suskind also claims that the Bush administration had information from a top Iraqi intelligence official "that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq – intelligence they received in plenty of time to stop an invasion." After the fake letter was released in late 2003, press outlets reported it as evidence of a Saddam/al Qaeda link. "Now, if this is true, that blows the lid off al Qaeda—Saddam," said Bill O’Reilly at the time. "The White House plans to push back hard," Politico reports. Former CIA Director George Tenet today called the charges 'ridiculous' and questioned whether Suskind is a 'serious journalist.' 'There was no such order from the White House to me,' he said. On NBC’s Today Show [video|01:34], Suskind said Tenet simply does not remember the letter — but Tenet’s staff does:

'I think this is part of George’s memory issue....He seems not to remember it. That’s at least what he claims. In this book, instead of going to George, I went to all the people around George, close to George, who remember because they were involved in the thing, and they remember what George says to them.'

After a White House meeting, Tenet went back to the CIA and ordered his staff to forge the letter. 'Listen Marine, you’re not going to like this, but here goes,' Tenet told Rob Richer, former head of the CIA’s Near East Division, according to Richer.^*

Is there [potential for] Life on Mars?

liquidindian — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 03:25:43 -0800

According to Aviation Today and Universe Week, the US President has been briefed on the discovery of "something more compelling [than the confirmation of water], completing another piece of the puzzle in the search for the correct conditions for life as we know it to survive on Mars". It's not life, or evidence of past life, but it's something. Via Jasohill.

Scott McClellan was "badly misguided"

Bathtub Bobsled — Wed, 28 May 2008 07:28:57 -0800

Scott McClellan wrote a book. The former Press Secretary admits some of his answers to White House Press Corps questions were badly misguided. One section of his book accuses George W. Bush of deluding himself about his alleged cocaine use. Of course, part of the blame for the entire mess should fall on the liberal media for being "too easy on the administration during the run-up to the war...".

More White House lies...

jpburns — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 13:11:10 -0800

Tim Goeglein, director of the White House office of public liaison, is a plagiarist.
... and he actually admits it.

“It is true,” Tim Goeglein wrote to The Journal Gazette in an e-mail. “I am entirely at fault. It was wrong of me. There are no excuses."

Found by Blogger (and MeFi lurker) Nancy Nall.

Is the Stem Cell Debate (almost) Over?

switchsonic — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 02:41:14 -0800

After recent promising results demonstrating the ability to change mouse skin cells into stem cells, researchers have replicated this change in human skin cells in papers published in Science and Cell (access to full articles requires subscription) . The White House, somehow, is trying to take credit for this. The potential of all this: huge.

Thompson's Glitch-Folk Debut

digaman — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 20:47:29 -0800

"I want those two minutes of my life back." Musique concrète Fred Thompson-style -- a merciless videohack of the candidate's performance at the GOP debate on MSNBC, October 9, 2007. While almost anyone can be made to look foolish edited this way, not everyone was impressed by Thompson's unedited presence at the debate, his TV debut as a presidential contender. Some believe, however, that the former Law and Order D.A. is just the man to "restore the Republican Party to Reagan's default settings."

Impeachment Day

East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 05:52:05 -0800

Clinton White House Spokesman Joe Lockhart does stand-up. Text, or if you prefer there is some audio at the 51min mark from This American Life.