Garrett M. Graff is the first blogger to be invited to the White House briefing room

• With an official credential hanging from his neck, a young man stepped into the White House briefing room Monday as perhaps the first blogger to cover the daily press briefings.
• He found the surroundings to be dilapidated and cramped and concluded that his morning at the White House was "remarkably uneventful."
• Garrett M. Graff, 23, writes Fishbowl D.C., a Web log about the news media in Washington.
• Graff said he got his pass after a week of asking.
• Historically, he said, the White House has admitted "the traditional media and the nontraditional media, as well as colorful individuals with certain points of view from the left and the right."
• The White House credentialing process came under scrutiny after a flap over James Guckert, who used the alias Jeff Gannon.
• For two years he was granted daily passes to White House briefings as Washington bureau chief for Talon News, a conservative online news outlet associated with another Web site, GOPUSA.
• That attracted scrutiny from liberal bloggers, who linked Guckert with Web sites containing gay pornography.
• McClellan said Graff was believed to be the first blogger to be credentialed to attend his morning press gathering and his televised briefing later in the day.
• McClellan ran into Graff in the press room in the afternoon and greeted him as "the mystery man."
• The two went up to McClellan's office to chat.
• On his blog, Graff wrote: "Our first impression this morning?
• As glamorous as the beat itself may be, there's little glamour to be found in the briefing room.
• The conditions of the briefing room, famously built over the old White House swimming pool, um, leave something to be desired."