Access to Obama e-mail new status symbol

WASHINGTON, Feb. 1 (UPI) -- The ultimate status symbol in Washington now is having access to U.S. President Barack Obama's new, super-secret e-mail address, observers say.

The new address is known to Vice President Joe Biden, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel, Obama's top advisers and some of his oldest friends from Chicago, The New York Times reported Sunday.

Among those who don't have it are U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., foreign affairs adviser Anthony Lake and many members of the Cabinet, including Defense Secretary Robert Gates, the newspaper said.

In a city obsessed with who's in and who's out, access to Obama's e-mail -- which he checks on special new BlackBerry -- is the new coin of the realm, a new measure for Washington to judge who really has the ear of the president, the Times said.

Unnamed aides told the Times that Obama also uses a computer in the study next to the Oval Office but that he has agreed to limit the number of people he would exchange e-mail with.