The first Morning Jolt of the week offers Syria, brackets, and this displeasing news story:

Out: Biden the Oaf. In: Biden the Sinister Thug.

Here’s your what-the-heck-are-you-talking-about story of the day, courtesy Jake Tapper:

“Scott – You have our sincere apologies for the lack of a better hold room today,” wrote Vice President Biden spokeswoman Elizabeth Alexander last Wednesday to Orlando Sentinel reporter Scott Powers.

“Lack of a better hold room” is an interesting way of putting it. In order to keep Powers from mingling with guests at a Democratic fundraiser last Wednesday, Powers was escorted into a storage closet by a Biden staffer.

Powers was the designated pool reporter, there to record the proceedings for the press corps in general.

Tapper dryly notes, “Forcing reporters into closets is generally not the tradition of politicians in the US.”

Didn’t this president just win some ridiculous award for openness with the press?

Once again, Moe Lane writes what I’m thinking before I write it:

I know that people will find this story funny on first read, and superficially it is.  But there’s a problem here, and it exists on a somewhat deeper level than the assault on the dignity of a member of the Fourth Estate.  You see, who told Biden’s staff that they had the right to sequester a reporter in another man’s home? …VP Biden’s staff, who – like the rest of this administration, honestly – is generally slapdash and heedless about the effects of their actions on others.  Time and again we’ve seen an institutional arrogance from these people: one that may have been… well, not justifiable.  But certainly unsurprising when the President is enjoying an average 63% approval rating; but at 48%?  Not so much.  But the administration’s worker drones are still not particularly interested in learning better, either – as one particular detail about the situation shows. 

We’ll see if the White House press corps remembers this…