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Where’s The Beef?

May 5, 2009

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President Obama offered to buy burgers today for the journalists covering his spontaneous lunch trip with Vice President Biden to Ray’s Hell Burger in Arlington, Va., assigning, according to this account, Caren Bohan of Reuters “order-taking duty.”

Pool reporter Linda Feldmann of the Christian Science Monitor writes:

Some declined, but others of us (your pooler included) didn’t want to seem ungracious, so we ordered burgers. Note: The five of us who did order are making a donation to charity, in lieu of attempting to reimburse [the president]. Caren noted that Obama has fed the press before, such as during campaign, when he bought ice cream.

Obama apparently called reporters “cheap dates,” surprised more of them didn’t take him up on the burger-buying (I mean, everyone ate meat with McCain). Feldmann noted, after the group returned to the White House, that she was still waiting for her burger. The “pool minder” told her to come and get it.

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Liz Cox Barrett is a writer at CJR.