FIRST OFF . . .

A White House consultant used “bad judgment” when he posed as an NBC News reporter during a presidential scouting expedition this week, a White House spokesman said Monday. The unnamed consultant--not a member of either the White House staff or the Secret Service--posed as a reporter during a visit to Columbia, Mo., rather than as a White House advance man so as to avoid raising expectations of a presidential visit. “It was a mistake, it shouldn’t have been done and we hope it doesn’t happen again,” said the spokesman, Mark Weinberg. A spokesman for NBC “Nightly News” said only that “I think the situation speaks for itself.”