By The Arch City Madman

A group of kindergartners from Conway Elementary School in Stafford County, VA were making their way to the White House for a planned field trip. According to the teacher and chaperones, they ran into some traffic on the way (imagine that – traffic in the Washington, D.C. area.) and did not make their scheduled time.

When they arrived at 10:25am they were told that the White House tour was cancelled because they arrived too late to enter the grounds. According to Paty Stine, one of the chaperones, they were scheduled to arrive between 10:00am and 10:15am for their tour. According to news accounts, they were not scheduled to meet the President.

According to a local news station:

The White House tells a slightly different story. A spokesperson said the group was actually supposed to be there at 9:30, but they held the gates for the group until 10:30, 15 minutes longer than they told the group, but when they still hadn’t arrived, they had to draw the line.

Parent and Chaperone Paty Stine said it best:

Paty Stine said the White House staff should have made an exception. She feels the kindergartners were snubbed for the Steelers.

“Here we have President Obama and his administration saying, ‘Here we are for the common, middle class people,‘ and here he is not letting 150 5- and 6-year-olds into the White House because he’s throwing a lunch for a bunch of grown millionaires,“ Stine said.

Regardless of who was at fault in this case, seems like a PR blunder to me on the part of the White House.

Now I guess I have to play the conspiracy card here and ask the question – would this be a local story covered by a few sources if President Bush would have snubbed a group of kindergartners? One can only guess, but I would err on the side of a national news story covered by all the MSM’s for several days. This is just pure speculation on my part of course.

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