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President Obama apparently has enough on his plate without the White House being a campaign stop for films working their way toward Oscar.
The White House has plans to cut back on "official" movie screenings, Tina Daunt and Tatiana Siegel of The Hollywood Reporter reported. Such screenings might make it seem as if Obama is picking a horse in the Oscar race. (Update, Friday: According to Entertainment Weekly, a White House spokeswoman denied the report: "The White House enjoys the opportunity to screen movies and will continue that tradition. Any reports to the contrary are not accurate.")
Presidential politics inserted itself rather directly into the Oscars last year, even before Michelle Obama appeared via satellite to announce the winner for Best Picture. An early screening of Steven Spielberg's Lincoln led certain Oscar hysterics to complain that the Obama administration was endorsing that particular film's Oscar campaign. Not that it did that film much good, since Argo took home the top prize.
As for this year, The Weinstein Company movie Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom has gained a lot of attention in Washington, with a White House screening earlier this month and another scheduled tonight at the Kennedy Center, to be co-hosted by Hillary Clinton and Colin Powell.