“Good morning, White House.”
That’s how they answer the phone there. Makes it sound small and cozy, as if the secretary is sitting in an alcove just outside a room in which Bill and Hillary are having their morning coffee, and she might be able to summon them to the phone if you’re polite enough.
I was transferred to their media services, and told a woman there I was a Canadian reporter working on a story I needed information about.
She said “I’ll transfer you to the farm news desk.”
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This sent shivers down my spine, because I hadn’t told them what paper I was from, so how could they know to put me on to the farm news desk? What vast array of intelligence technology was analyzing this telephone call and telling them everything about me?
No answer at the farm news desk, but I got onto a recorded message line, and it turned out I had been transferred to the “foreign” news desk. The secretary’s southern drawl had just transformed the sound in unCanadian fashion. So, unfortunately, things were not quite so sinister as I thought.
My reason for calling the White House had been quite mundane, and I had not expected to get an answer of any sort. I was following up a letter a fellow from Canadian Farmers For Justice had sent to President Clinton, and I wanted to know whether they had received it there, at the centre of world power.
That’s the fun part of being a reporter – one gets to call all sorts of important places and people and ask silly questions.
I never did get a return call from the White House, but I must admit I enjoyed the thrill of speaking to low-level bureaucrats of the world’s most powerful institution, and can now empathize with Kafka’s “K”, who never does get through to anyone in charge.
