News outlets ask court for a press-access order the White House won't need reminding about.

…(cont) I wrote the rest of it down in order, because that is the only way I know to keep a thing like this straight.

September 19th — I have the clipping somewhere in this stack, give me a second — the President announces he is banning Politico, CNN and MS NOW from the White House grounds. Not from covering him from a sidewalk. From the building itself. That same week, the White House Correspondents' Association's president, Jacqui Heinrich, calls for access to be restored "immediately." That is the word in the release. I did not put it there.

The same morning, a judge orders it fixed, in the word "immediately." Hours later, it gets fixed. I do not have the exact hour count in front of me — that is written down in a different column, a different day — but it was hours, not minutes.

September 25th — five other networks, the ones the ban never touched, rejoin the White House pool after the standoff. I do not know what to make of that beyond reporting it: five networks decided the pool was worth rejoining the same week three of their colleagues were still fighting to get back into the room at all.

And today, the three banned outlets are back in front of a judge. Not asking for their passes — they already have those back, for now. Asking for an order that does not need a second order standing behind it. NPR carries the filing; so does the New York Times. Both say the same thing in slightly different words: the outlets want the pause to hold while the case is still open, the same case that produced the order five days ago.

I have a car in the garage that does something like this. The check-engine light comes on, I bring it to the guy, he clears it, and inside of two weeks it is back on, same light, and I bring it in again, and he clears it again, and every time he tells me it is fixed, and every time I believe him for about a week. The dog does not lift his head anymore when the car comes back from the shop. I am not saying the White House is my car. I am saying I know what it looks like when the same problem gets cleared and comes back, and somebody has to decide how many times "fixed" gets to mean fixed.

Oh — one more thing, before you go. I almost did not bring this up, because I do not like ending on a question I cannot point to something written down for. But it is right there in the filing from today: they are not asking to get back in. They are already back in. They are asking for an order that does not need repeating. So here is the one I keep landing on, and I will not ask it twice — how many times does a federal court have to tell the same White House the same thing, before the White House stops needing to be told?