Good morn­ing, every­one, and greet­ings from the Boe­ing plant in Everett, where Patrick, Eve, and I are wait­ing to be trans­port­ed to Paine Field and the fac­to­ry where the 787 Dream­lin­er is assem­bled on press bus­es. We’re here in Everett to cov­er the final leg of Pres­i­dent Oba­ma’s mid-Feb­ru­ary tour of the Left Coast, which began a few days ago when the Pres­i­dent arrived in Los Angeles.

This will be the Pres­i­den­t’s first 2012 trip to Wash­ing­ton State, and his fourth offi­cial vis­it since he assumed the office. (He made two vis­its in 2010 and stopped by once last year as well).

Air Force One is expect­ed to touch down at Paine Field around 10:45 AM or so, and from there the Pres­i­dent will head into the build­ing that Eve and I are being tak­en to for a tour of the facil­i­ty. (The assem­bly line is not in oper­a­tion today, pre­sum­ably because it would be too noisy and unsafe to hold a media event in that envi­ron­ment). We’re told the Pres­i­dent has not yet set foot inside a Dream­lin­er, so today will be his first oppor­tu­ni­ty to go inside Boe­ing’s new rev­o­lu­tion­ary wide­body jet, which has tak­en many long years for the com­pa­ny to get into the air.

UPDATE, 9:10 AM (Andrew):  Just received this update a few min­utes ago from the White House press pool (the print reporter that trav­els with the pres­i­den­tial entourage): “Motor­cade depart­ed San Fran­cis­co Inter­con­ti­nen­tal at 8:34 am PST, under sun­ny skies and the dul­cet tones of a loan, albeit loud, pro­test­er. Unevent­ful ride to the air­port. Air Force One head­ed to Seat­tle [actu­al­ly, Everett] at 8:55 AM.”

UPDATE, 9:30 AM (Patrick): Those of us who went out to the flight line got to see a pret­ty remark­able line­up of Boe­ing air­craft, includ­ing many 747–8s (the newest vari­ant of Boe­ing’s dis­tinc­tive jum­bo jet).

UPDATE, 9:50 AM (Andrew): We are now in posi­tion on the press ris­er inside the fac­to­ry. Pres­i­dent Oba­ma has a good back­drop for his speech: three Dream­lin­ers in var­i­ous stages of com­ple­tion, a big Amer­i­can flag hang­ing from the rafters, and Boe­ing machin­ery. In the fore­ground is a grow­ing crowd of Boe­ing work­ers, who are talk­ing shop with each oth­er while wait­ing for the Pres­i­dent to show up. It’s going to be a while.

What the scene looks like inside the Boe­ing fac­to­ry where Pres­i­dent Oba­ma is sched­uled to speak (Pho­to: Andrew Villeneuve/NPI)

UPDATE, 10:07 AM (Patrick): Out here on the tar­mac, I’ve count­ed sev­en heli­copters land­ing so far. A cou­ple look like Black Hawks, but with an exec­u­tive paint scheme. The air smells like jet fuel. It appears that the Marines will be trans­port­ing Pres­i­dent Oba­ma down to Bellevue/Medina for his after­noon events.

UPDATE, 10:20 AM (Andrew): There are a lot of reporters here. It’s a good thing there’s a real­ly long press ris­er inside the fac­to­ry here, because every major tele­vi­sion net­work seems to have a crew, and there are many print reporters and still pho­tog­ra­phers here as well on behalf of their respec­tive publications.

UPDATE, 10:23 AM (Patrick): The Wash­ing­ton State Patrol, sher­if­f’s deputies from King and Sno­homish coun­ties, and oth­er fed­er­al and local author­i­ties are out in full force. Glad to see them mak­ing sure the Pres­i­dent is ful­ly protected.

UPDATE, 10:50 AM (Patrick): Air Force One has land­ed and the Pres­i­dent has exit­ed the air­craft using a Lift-a-Loft. He is now talk­ing to a group of friends and fam­i­lies of Boe­ing workers.