Moving in, out at the White House

Janis Cooke Newman’s essay on Mary Todd Lincoln [“In Mary’s Footsteps,” May 3] contains the kind of sloppy journalism that makes one question her entire piece. She writes that the “Buchanans were slow to move out of their presidential quarters, so, like the Obamas, the Lincolns spent the weeks before the inauguration at a Washington hotel.”

The new president does not move into the White House until after the inauguration; the outgoing family leaves the morning of the ceremony. The Obamas stayed in a hotel before the inauguration because the outgoing Bush administration had scheduled a series of going-away parties and tributes at Blair House, where the incoming president and family have traditionally stayed before the swearing-in. Snarkiness trumps facts in the newspaper -- yet again.

Steve Parker

Beverly Hills