A Growing Separation of Press and State

Last Thursday, while the press corps was in Texas, Bush was in Wisconsin talking about Britain's foiling of a terrorist plot to bomb U.S.-bound planes. Yesterday, Bush held two photo ops at the Pentagon and another one at the State Department before taking questions in the day's fourth appearance. Today brings two more photo ops, at the National Counterterrorism Center.

It's not yet clear whether all this has burnished Bush's image. A Newsweek poll taken after Britain broke up the airplane plot found a sharp gain for Bush on his handling of homeland security. But his overall support was a grim 38 percent.

Whatever the political benefit, Bush's photo ops don't do much for the discourse. At the no-questions session at the Pentagon, Bush served up a series of platitudes, disclosing that "we've got a fantastic military," that "we're a blessed nation," that "we're constantly thinking about how to secure the homeland" and that "I'm confident in our capacity to leave behind a better world."

But when he took questions later in the day at the State Department, Bush was sharp and energetic. "Hezbollah started the crisis, and Hezbollah suffered a defeat in this crisis," he said bluntly when asked who won the month-long Middle East fighting. He admitted that Hezbollah "has got a fantastic propaganda machine," vowed that U.N. troops would "seal off the Syrian border" and described how Israel could defend itself without violating the cease-fire.

In his briefing, Snow argued for the merits of the photo op. "We do not invite in amen choruses," he said.

That may be true. Bush had lunch at the Pentagon with academics, one of whom has criticized Bush's "proto-authoritarian policies" and another of whom has referred to "Washington's tortured involvement in Iraq." But it's hard to know for sure whether anybody said amen; reporters weren't invited.

"Isn't this cozy?" Snow remarked after he crossed Pennsylvania Avenue, passed the balky metal detector and climbed to the third-floor briefing room. The place was a bit cramped, but there were some modest improvements: Fox News scored a front-row seat and got to ask the second question, and the backdrop curtains had lightened a shade to a royal blue. And Snow, pitying the outcast reporters, offered to linger for five minutes after the session for "anybody who wants a piece of me."

It was small consolation for the correspondents, who were, historians say, operating from the other side of Pennsylvania Avenue for the first time ever. "You can't even see the White House from the new press center," chief Associated Press correspondent Terry Hunt grumbled.

True, a rotating group of 18 correspondents and camera crews gets to stay in a trailer near the White House. But they have to share a single toilet as they worry that they will not be allowed to return after the promised nine months.

One resident of the trailer park, the Chicago Tribune's Mark Silva, reported back to his colleagues on Sunday: "We passed the gutted press briefing room, the chairs gone, and paused to wonder about you-know-what."