Obama locked out of the White House

Obama was briefly locked out of the Oval Office after returning to the White House earlier than staffers expected.

(Image credit: CC BY: The White House)

last updated 8 January 2015

The video: The fervent prayers of the Republican Party have been answered. President Obama found himself locked out of the White House yesterday upon returning from his five-day trip to Latin America. Sadly for hopeful GOP supporters, Obama was only temporarily denied entry to the Oval Office. (See the video below.) It seems the White House staff was not informed the president would be arriving so early. Obama isn't the first president to find himself thwarted by an unyielding door — President George W.Bush was famously flummoxed by a locked exit following a 2005 press conference in Beijing. "I was trying to escape," he later joked. "Obviously it didn't work."

The reaction: Talk about no-drama Obama, says Mark Joyella at Mediaite. He didn't give a "funny look of confusion for the sake of snarky internet clip-posters," or even pause for a beat before working out what to do next. He even "seemed to whistle as he walked on." It's still a funny moment for the administration that claims to be the most transparent ever, says Ed Morrissey at Hot Air. Maybe this is what you get when you insist on so many closed-door meetings. Watch Obama's latest obstacle here: