Obama morns victims of Boston Bombing with only a White House photographer present

Does this strike one as being extremely contrived and artificial?  This seems ripe for a SNL skit to poke fun at this self importance.  From Politico:

Tuesday morning, a peculiar announcement trickled out of the White House press office: President Barack Obama would be holding a moment of silence for the victims of the Boston bombings. At the White House. By himself. No press or other intruders allowed.

Except the White House photographer.

That Obama assumed Americans would want an iconic photo of him privately mourning the victims of the bombings was emblematic of a kind of hubris that has enveloped the president and his White House as the president commences his second term. . . .