"No offense to Crawford, but taking the presidential retreat to Honolulu is change to believe in."

WP: Life's Not Necessarily A Beach for Press Corps
Obama Reporters Try to Hang Loose
By Philip Rucker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 26, 2008; Page C01


NBC's Savannah Guthrie, with Oahu's Diamond Head in the background. (Philip Rucker/WP)

HONOLULU, Dec. 25 -- It's prime time and CNN's Ed Henry is standing on the white sand of Waikiki Beach, reporting live on President-elect Barack Obama's holiday vacation in Hawaii. With the volcanic mountain Diamond Head in the distance, Henry is flanked by palm trees, bikini-clad babes and surfer dudes.

"Ed, are those your producers over your right shoulder, like sunning themselves and deciding what books to read?" anchor Anderson Cooper asks. "No, my producers are working very hard," Henry replies. "Okay, yeah, I think you're in board shorts and have a mai tai nearby," Cooper says, prodding the cameraman to zoom out. And voilà! Below his blue dress shirt, Henry's sporting teal swim trunks with orange stripes.

"I kept my shirt on because I don't have the pecs of either Anderson Cooper or Barack Obama," Henry, the network's self-deprecating senior White House correspondent, said later in an interview.

For the White House press corps, covering Obama's 13-day Hawaiian sojourn is a departure from past holidays hunkered down near President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Tex. They've upgraded their offices from highway hotels in Waco to the Westin Moana Surfrider Resort on Waikiki Beach. They've traded a backdrop of rusted farm equipment and bales of hay for sailboats, longboards and crashing waves. And they've hung up their winter coats.

"What a difference a year makes," exults NBC White House correspondent Savannah Guthrie, leaning back in a padded armchair on a veranda overlooking the Pacific. "No offense to the people of Crawford, Texas, but taking the presidential retreat from Crawford to Honolulu is change anyone can believe in," Henry says, borrowing a phrase from Obama's campaign.

Although Obama is staying about 15 miles away in the quiet beach town of Kailua, the television networks decided to broadcast from the beach in front of the Honolulu hotel where journalists and Obama's staff are staying. The location affords a stunning backdrop of Diamond Head, one of Hawaii's most recognizable landmarks....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/25/AR2008122501171.html?hpid=sec-artsliving

about a couple of weeks ago~ The difference between the Press Corp hanging out around Crawford while bush fiddled with his brush and going to Hawai'i to work on their collective tan while waiting for Obama to make a moveB-)