The Reporter Who Speaks for Obama

But there are limits to Douglass's clout, as she learned when she twice tried to end the news conference and Obama didn't stop taking questions.

"If he wants to keep talking, he'll keep talking," she says.

A Clintonite's Choice

Fox News's newest contributor, to be announced today, may surprise the liberal crowd: former Clinton White House lawyer Lanny Davis.

"Fox has always treated me with respect and given me a chance to express my point of view," Davis says of the network that the Democratic candidates refused to grant a debate out of concern that it favors Republicans. He will be a frequent guest, along with such Fox stalwarts as Karl Rove and Newt Gingrich.

A relentless surrogate for Hillary Clinton, Davis says, he felt "ganged up on" during appearances on the other cable channels. He says that Clinton was "demonized" by MSNBC's Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann, and that CNN's primary-night panels were tilted toward the Obama side.

"Does Fox have a conservative slant on some of their programs? Yes," Davis says. "They're giving me a chance to provide a counterpoint, and that's all I can ask."

Remembrances of Russert

We'll get back to the campaign in a moment, but I wanted to share a few of the many fine remembrances of Tim Russert. I must say how utterly struck I am that Russert's death seemed to touch a nerve among the public, not just Washington journalists, and that owes much to his passion and personality.

Noam Scheiber in the New Republic:

" 'Meet the Press' consistently made news, a rare and precious accomplishment for an interview program--for all of television news, in fact.

"Of course, the real trick is figuring out Russert's secret news-making sauce, which is slightly more complicated. A show like "Meet the Press" hinges on a delicate equilibrium: Prominent guests show up to impress its important viewers. But the important people only watch if the guests say semi-interesting things. Without the opportunity to impress all those viewers, the guests wouldn't show (at least not with the same frequency). Without the chance at some drama, the viewers wouldn't tune in (at least not in the same numbers).

"Russert's ingenious solution to this problem: The gotcha. The delicious possibility of seeing a secretary of state or joint chiefs chairman get that shifty-eyed, busted-for-filching-the-homeroom-Jolly-Rancher-stash look when they contradicted an earlier pronouncement kept us watching week after week. But the questioning was rarely so probing or aggressive or unpredictable that a reasonably agile guest couldn't study his way to a passing grade.

"The gotcha may have been a wearying journalistic device. But, as a strategy for getting big names in front of big audiences on a regular basis, and driving the political news cycle in a way that no other TV program could, it was a stunning success. For that, Russert deserves real credit."