Gray Lady's Dream Finally Comes True

Now is the time when we juxtapose, Small Dead Animals-style:

The other night I dreamt of Barack Obama. He was taking a shower right when I needed to get into the bathroom to shave my legs, and then he was being yelled at by my husband, Max, for smoking in the house. It was not clear whether Max was feeling protective of the president’s health or jealous because of the cigarette.

—The creepy, self-revealing lede paragraph of “Sometimes a President Is Just a President,” Judith Warner, the New York Times, February 5th, 2009.

A New York Times reporter says a Clinton press aide “escorted” her to the bathroom and waited outside the stall during the Clinton Global Initiative’s annual meeting being held this week in New York. The escort even waited outside the stall until the reporter was done in there.

“The person who stands out is the friendly 20-something press aide who the Clinton Global Initiative tasked with escorting me to the restroom,” Amy Chozick wrote. ”She waited outside the stall in the ladies’ room at the Sheraton Hotel, where the conference is held each year.”

—“NY Times Reporter: Clinton Press Aide Followed Me to the Bathroom,” headline, Fox News, today.

That’s Hillary Clinton for you: making the collective dreams of New York Timespeople come true, even when Barack Obama can’t. She’s so selfless that way.

Update: At the Tatler, Bryan Preston adds:

It’s not the first time that the Clinton machine has pulled a bathroom stunt. In 2008, Hillary’s campaign dispatched reporters covering them to a men’s room.

The WaPost’s Chris Cillizza suggests that the Clintons are treating the press with paranoid contempt for two reasons: They hate the media, and they don’t really need the media.

Both reasons are true. And here’s another truth: Clinton can mistreat the media from now until election day in 2016 and it won’t matter a bit. The media will still give them 10 positive stories for every one mildly critical one, and will still fawn all over them every chance it gets.

And Joe Biden’s aides have been infamous for locking reporters in closets and forcing them to delete photos on multiple occasions during his events. But hey, those low-level operatives sometimes need to be reminded who their bosses are from time to time.