Newsroom Meeting for the New President

"The poll found that the handful of problems Mr. Obama's transition has encountered have had little, if any, effect on his standing with the public. And even before the Illinois Democrat is sworn in as the nation's first African-American president, the poll found a large increase in the number of Americans who view race relations positively. . . . Nearly eight in 10 said race relations in the U.S. are very or fairly good, higher than the proportion in past polls."

Obama's media mastery continues: A letter to his kids on why he ran for president winds up on the cover of Parade magazine.

Joe Biden says he too will be influential, even if not another Cheney.

My column the other day on the paucity of African American correspondents at the White House drew a sharp reaction from Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby:

"With so many other things to worry about, and with the whole world able to see that racial identity is no longer a barrier to even the most powerful position in American life, you might think the press would finally be ready to abandon its unhealthy preoccupation with the color of skin -- especially the skin within its own ranks. Alas, no . . .

"But why should it matter to anyone but a racist whether a White House reporter is black or white? Well, says Michael Fletcher, a colleague of Kurtz's, 'you would want to have black journalists there to bring a different racial sensibility.' By the same token, more evangelical journalists would presumably bring a different religious sensibility to the White House, more journalists from the Deep South would bring a different regional sensibility, and more Republican journalists would bring a different political sensibility. Do you know of any news organizations that are fretting over the 'relative paucity' of evangelicals, Southerners, or Republicans on their payrolls? Me neither . . .

"The plain if unfashionable truth is that the White House press corps, and journalism generally, don't need more black reporters. They don't need more white reporters, either. Journalism needs good reporters, and good reporting isn't a function of race."

Sorry, I'm not buying. What if there were no women in the White House press corps? Would we say, well, who cares, men can do the job? I would like to see evangelicals, military veterans and others with varying experiences included in the mix. The mention of Republicans is a red herring, because most reporters, even if they lean left on issues, don't consider themselves Democrats. And if they want to be Democrats, they can go into the administration, as Linda Douglass and Jay Carney have.

As if to underscore my point about differing perspectives, The Post's Vanessa Williams has this essay on The Root:

"Gotta love the brothers who show their affection for the dark-skinned girls, even if they are hollering out the window of a passing car.

"Gotta love it even more when the brother is the president, and the object of his affection is front and center for the world to see.

"It's true: A lot of black women fell for Barack Obama the moment they saw his wife.

"If a black president represents change, a dark-skinned first lady is straight-up revolutionary.

"I won't apologize for taking note of Michelle Obama's physical appearance. Plenty has already been said about how she, with her double Ivy degrees, six-figure salaries and two adorable daughters, is crushing the image of the struggling black single mother. She is a real life Claire Huxtable! But the true breakthrough here is that sisters who look like Michelle Obama seldom become cultural icons, aesthetic trendsetters -- a proxy for the all-American woman.

"And don't roll your eyes and ask why we have to go there; we haven't completely gotten over our prejudices about skin tone and hair texture. . . . I know from first-hand experience. I remember being taunted and shunned by some people who didn't believe that old saying about the blacker the berry. Back when we were Negroes, the word 'black' was used to describe the dark-skinned among us, usually not with affection."

Here's a story that should have gotten more attention, on a Bush administration official named Bradley Schlozman:

"A former senior official at the Justice Department routinely hired Republicans, Federalist Society members and 'R.T.A.'s' -- 'Right-Thinking Americans'-- for what were supposed to be nonpolitical posts and gave them plum assignments on civil rights cases . . .

"He talked about reshaping the political makeup of the Civil Rights Division and doing away with 'pinko' and 'crazy lib' lawyers and others he did not consider 'real Americans.'

"In one e-mail message regarding a pool of job applicants, he wrote that 'as long as I'm here, adherents of Mao's Little Red Book need not apply.'

"When a colleague reported that he had been given an office next to a member of the Federalist Society, a conservative legal affairs group, Mr. Schlozman responded in an e-mail message: 'Just between you and me, we hired another member of "the team" yesterday. And still another ideological comrade will be starting in one month. So we are making progress.' "

Just between you and me, that is a total corruption of federal law enforcement that was all too common in the Gonzalez Justice Department.

The news yesterday that Apple CEO Steve Jobs is taking a medical leave because his health problems are more "complex" than he thought hit like a bombshell, in part because he's so crucial to the company's success. But it's also because Apple has consistently refused to discuss the cancer survivor's health, declaring it to be a private matter.

It's worth recalling what the haggard-looking Jobs told Joe Nocera last July, when the NYT columnist inquired about his health:

"This is Steve Jobs. You think I'm an arrogant [expletive] who thinks he's above the law, and I think you're a slime bucket who gets most of his facts wrong."

Nocera was calling to get the facts about Jobs's health, which the executive would discuss only off the record. Now look where that's gotten Apple.