US News
Reporters happy to get booted from White House
By DPA
Aug 2, 2006, 19:00 GMT

Washington - For probably the first time in US history, the White House press corps is actually happy about being thrown out of the revered mansion.

For years reporters have complained about the uncomfortable, crammed and - during summer - hot confines in the West Wing. Now, their wish has been granted. The James S Brady briefing room will undergo a renovation while press conferences take place on a temporary basis in a building across the street.

President George W Bush, who made a surprise visit to the final briefing Wednesday, signed off on the remodelling, expressing some sympathy for his antagonizers.

'I know you've been complaining about the digs for a while,' Bush said. 'Let me just say we felt your pain.'

Despite long held frustrations over the coop, reporters couldn't help but be a little sentimental about the place, although Bush did not hold the same fond memories.

'My best moment in here is when my press conference ended,' Bush told a prodding reporter before pretending to have an interest in spoiling the group.

'Suede chairs, huh? Is that what you're looking at? Kind of velvet? Armchairs? Everybody wants to be able to lean back.'

Former president Richard Nixon constructed the room in 1970, filling in a swimming pool used by Franklin D Roosevelt and John F Kennedy. The room became the site a few years later of endless questions about the Watergate scandal that ruined Nixon's presidency.

The room was later for Ronald Reagan's press secretary who was shot during the 1981 attempt on the then-president's life outside a hotel in Washington.