It seems that Barack Obama has not become familiarized with his new workplace yet. The US president attempted to enter the Oval Office of the White House through a window, news agencies said.
The new president lost his way to the Oval Office yesterday. He thought that he could enter the office through one of the doors which happened to be on his way. However, the door turned out to be a large panel window. There are large windows on the ground floor of the White House, but the door, the size of which is the same as that of the panel windows, was just a couple of meters far from the confused president. Barack Obama was probably saddened with the fact that all Republican members of the House of Representatives refused to back his $825-billion stimulus package.
Reporters reminded of a similar confusing situation which happened to George W. Bush during his visit to Beijing in 2005. Bush was trying to leave a press conference via a locked door. Many used the incident in Beijing as a metaphor for Bush’s politics in Iraq – no way out.
Another oddity is connected with Obama’s clothing preferences in the Oval Office. The New York Times wrote that Obama was holding meetings in the office without his suit jacket, which never happened in the nation’s recent history. Reporters believe that the Hawaii-born heat-loving head of state hates cold and so he ordered to have all heaters in the White House on to have the climate he likes. He does not suffer from cold anymore, but it became quite hot in the building.
In his first few days in office, Obama issued executive orders and presidential memoranda reversing President Bush's ban on federal funding to foreign establishments that allow abortions (known as the Mexico City Policy and referred by critics as the "Global Gag Rule"), and changed procedures to promote disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act, directing the U.S. military to develop plans to withdraw troops from Iraq, and reducing the secrecy given to presidential records, and closing Guantanamo Bay detention camp "as soon as practicable and no later than" January 2010, and "Immediate Review of All Guantánamo Detentions".