Obama stares down reporter

President Obama paid a surprise visit to members of the White House press corps Thursday evening when he walked through their working area of the West Wing, but he quickly became agitated when he was confronted with a question by one of the journalists.

Obama said he dropped in on the press corps just to visit, but a Politico reporter asked him how he can reconcile his ban on lobbyists in his administration yet have a Raytheon lobbyist working in the Pentagon.

According to reports, when the Politico's Jonathan Martin asked the president about his nominee for deputy secretary of defense, William Lynn, Obama refused to answer, saying he was not there to take questions.

"I came down here to visit. I didn't come down here , this is what happens. I can't end up visiting you guys and shaking hands if I am going to grilled every time I come down here," said the new President

Pressed further by the Politico reporter about his Pentagon nominee, William J. Lynn III, Obama turned more serious, putting his hand on the reporter's shoulder and staring him in the eye.

"All right, come on,We will be having a press conference, at which time you can feel free to [ask] questions. Right now, I just wanted to say hello and introduce myself to you guys that's all I was trying to do," the president said.

President Obama must understand by now that asking questions — especially hard ones — is what reporters do. It's about all they do all the time. No way to get around it.

Obama seems to be a very nice guy. But there aren't a lot of them in the press corps — just reporters looking for news.

Obama spent about 10 minutes total, winding his way through a crush of reporters and photographers between the upper and lower floors of the journalists' workspace and asking questions about who worked where and how the booths and desks were assigned.

Reporters had little warning about the impromptu visit by the new president, and those who were in the downstairs portion of the press quarters only came to the briefing room after an unexpected and cryptic announcement on the internal intercom that they do so.

Obama made it to the back of the briefing room, in a narrow hallway, where he shook hands.

"I've got to say, it's smaller than I thought," the president said as he looked around for the first time.

He introduced himself to those whom he didn't already know from the long campaign trail and said it would take a little while to learn everyone's names.

The president then continued on, walking by the media outlets' booths on the same floor.

Obama asked about the reasoning behind why certain media outlets had work space where they did. When he got an answer involving the intricacies of press corps protocol, Obama responded: "This is worse than the Middle East here -- who's sitting where and all that stuff."

As he walked through the area where journalists have lunch, Obama noticed a pair of vending machines that dispense soda and junk food.

"Looks like you have some healthy snacks, guys," Obama said.

Then he walked through the basement quarters, where several other news outlets set up shop. He said that was smaller than he expected too.