Not Your Sweetie

We Begin Combing in Five Minutes
The White House is vowing a strong retaliatory response after the BBC aired live
video of President Bush getting his hair coiffed in the Oval Office as he squirmed
in his chair and practiced on the teleprompter minutes before Wednesday night's
speech announcing the launch of military operations against Saddam Hussein.

The British network broadcast 1 minute and 37 seconds of presidential primping
to hundreds of millions of viewers in 200 countries around the world (and locally
on WETA, Channel 26) before Bush's formal address at 10:15 p.m. Yesterday
the BBC's White House producer, Mark Orchard, profusely and repeatedly
apologized to irked staffers for airing video of an "unauthorized" portion of the
pool feed while Washington anchor Mishal Husain chatted up a colleague about
the significance of the moment.

CBS News Washington bureau chief Janet Leissner, whose news crew was
responsible for pool coverage of the speech, also apologized to the White
House, explaining that a technician accidentally flipped a switch that fed the
images of a not-ready-for-prime-time Bush -- his eyes darting to and fro as a
female stylist sprayed, combed and patted down his hair.

(snip)

Henceforth, the official said, the White House -- not the networks -- will throw the
switches that make pool feeds available to broadcast outlets. "There have been
too many incidents," the official said, listing various presidential speeches
allegedly marred by pool-feed glitches. "We have to make sure we are
comfortable with the situation."