I just read a White House pool report that I found quite poignant, so I wanted to share it with you, dear Gaggle Readers. The report is from Mike Riley who covers the Washington for Denver Post. Here it is in full:
With most of the president’s afternoon schedule closed to the press, it was former Reagan press secretary and gunshot victim James Brady who stole the show when, along with his wife Sarah, he dropped by the revamped James S. Brady press briefing room. Dressed in a dark blue pinstripe suit, Brady was in a wheelchair, holding a cane in his left hand, his injuries the result of a gunshot wound to the head inflicted by John Hinckley Jr. during a botched assassination attempt against Brady’s boss in 1981. Brady was at the White House to pay his respects to Robert Gibbs, the man who now holds his former job. Brady’s speech is sometimes slurred, but he took a few minutes for an exchange of quips with the reporters who now work in briefing room dedicated to Brady in February, 2000. Telling a story about Helen Thomas, Brady recounted how she used knock on the glass of his office early in morning, before he had had his tea. “I would say, ‘Woman, have you no shame? The answer was, ‘No, do you think I would have gotten so far in a male-dominated world if I had any shame,’” Brady recounted.
Ann Compton, the veteran White House correspondent for ABC News, ask Brady how he would rate the current crop of correspondents. “I would give you a high grade,” Brady said, then quipped, “Was that the right answer?”
His wife Sarah stood at his side as Brady answered questions, sometimes helping to amplify or clarify his speech. She said this was the first visit to the briefing room after it had been rededicated in her husband’s honor, and wondered aloud over the size of the White House press corps’ digs even now. “They’re still tiny,” she said of the renovated press room. “I can’t imagine how anyone gets any work done.” She noted that she and her husband no longer live in Washington and now get news from the capital like most everyone else at a distance. “To think that so much of it is coming from this tiny little area,” she said.
After just over ten minutes, Brady was wheeled out towards the West wing driveway.
