Petty. Vindictive. Childish.

Disrespectful. Showing a total lack of class:

The veil is lifted. We now know who is booked at Blair House, kicking President-elect Barack Obama and his family to the waiting list and across Lafayette Park to the Hay-Adams Hotel.

The only overnight visitor at the presidential guest manse is none other than John Howard, a former Australian prime minister and leading member of President Bush’s coalition of the willing in Iraq.
[…]
There are other scheduled events at Blair House, but no other planned overnight visits between now and Jan. 15, when the Obama family is scheduled to move in, McDonough said.
[…]
The Obamas requested an early move-in at the 70,000-square-foot, 119-room mansion across the street from the White House so their children could settle in to start school this week at Sidwell Friends School. But the incoming first family was told the residence had been booked, so they took a suite at the Hay-Adams.

At the time, the White House would not say which events were bumping the Obamas.

There is a reason for that (emphasis in original):

Last night on MSNBC’s “Countdown,” Bloomberg journalist Margaret Carlson revealed that when the White House turned down Obama’s request in early December, it had not yet even invited Howard to stay at the Blair House:

I reported…on December 11 and 12 that there were no foreign dignitaries booked into Blair House during that period of time. … I have the feeling they asked him [Howard] to come and stay so that there might be some plausible reason for not letting the Obamas stay there.

She also pointed out that Blair House has “119 rooms with 35 bathrooms. Howard wouldn’t even have to share a sink with the Obamas.”

Note to Fausta: “kicking President-elect Barack Obama and his family to the waiting list” does not mean “kicking President-elect Barack Obama and his family out of Blair House.” How could they have been kicked to a waiting list to get into Blair House if they were already in Blair House? And anyway, they were not kicked to a waiting list, either, because as Margaret Carlson reported, at the time the Obamas asked if they could move in to Blair House early and were told no they could not, John Howard was NOT booked at Blair House. Nobody was.

Obviously, there is a distance of many miles between Fausta’s comments and the point. Which goes for James Joyner, too:

Laura Rosen wonders, “Can’t the Australian embassy find [Howard] a hotel?” Sure. But the thing is this:  Blair House is “The President’s Guest House, ” where presidents house VIP guests.  George W. Bush is president of the United States until noon on January 20.

Incoming presidents customarily stay at Blair House starting on January 15. Lo and behold, it’ll be available for his use by then. No one has been “kicked out.”

Uh, yes, James, we all got that memo. That may be why the Obamas asked Pres. and Laura Bush for permission to move in before the customary date (duhhhhhh) so their girls could start school without, as your reader, Ugh, pointed out, having to “force the closure of portions of three major downtown streets for almost two weeks.” Also, as Margaret Carlson pointed out in her interview with Rachel Maddow last night, the Obamas will now have to move twice. It takes a pretty spiteful mindset to put the incoming president of the United States and his family through that added stress for no legitimate reason whatsoever.

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