The Waiting
As Tom Petty once sang, the waiting is the hardest part -- especially concerning a scheduled or imminent breaking news event. (You can never go wrong quoting Tom Petty.)
We had several perfect examples of this Thursday, starting with the joint news conference held by President George W. Bush and outgoing British Prime Minister Tony Blair. We planned to take it live at its original scheduled starting time of 11:25 a.m. ET during “Morning Call,” but were later told the starting time had been moved up to 11:05 a.m. A White House staffer appeared at the podium a few minutes after that, which usually means the President’s appearance is imminent. It wasn’t.
Our anchors and chief Washington correspondent John Harwood did an admirable job of filling the time -- interspersed with a few commercial breaks that we were reluctant to take, because of the uncertainty and the absence of the standard 2-minute warning. The president and prime minister eventually did appear -- at 11:21 a.m.