The Domesticated President

In one passage, the newcomer recounts McCllellan asserting: "The president [also talked about] our strategy for prevailing in the war on terrorism and defeating the ideology that the terrorists espouse."

Writes Wilson: "Since this was my first exposure, in real time, to the administration's spin jingo, straight from the larynx of a living person, I was so stunned I emitted an involuntarily, hysterical gasp and one of McClellan's frozen über-blondes tried to turn me into a pillar of salt with a penetrating fish-eye.

"The corps is inured to this ideological Esperanto, but it is vertiginous and risible when you first hear it live -- compared to human conversation, it sounds absurd. . . .

"My first revelation: Nobody in the room asks questions like 'How does one militarily defeat an ideology, short of killing everyone who feels that way and their families, then destroying all writings ever produced about that ideology, and disappearing any scholars who've ever had a passing interest in it?' And/or 'Has the president noticed that historically, ideologies usually persist, despite genocide and other disincentives?'

"That's not how questions are asked in the briefing room. How it's done is far more complicated, Byzantine and ineffectual."

She concludes: "McClellan infantalizes the press corps. . . . his tone suggests your persistence in asking these awful questions means that you are crabby and need a nap."

Fleeing Crawford

Gersh Kuntzman writes in the New York Post: "The Rev. Al Sharpton was in such a hurry to get out of President Bush's neighborhood that his driver blew past a deputy sheriff at 110 mph and then led troopers on a nine-mile Texas chase before pulling over, authorities said."

But Dave Goldiner of the New York Daily News takes a different approach to the story.

"Rev. Al Sharpton smelled a rat the size of the Lone Star State after his volunteer driver was charged with leading cops on a 110-mph chase following Sunday's meeting with peace mom Cindy Sheehan," Goldiner writes.

" 'I think this is a little Texas politics,' Sharpton told the Daily News yesterday. 'None of it happened like that at all.' "

Bush Cards

The Washington Post reports that the second-term edition of Bush Cards are out.

Bush's Beer

Several readers e-mailed me to express their surprise about an item in yesterday's column .

I noted that Julie Mason had written in the Houston Chronicle that "Bush, who gave up drinking years ago, drank a non-alcoholic Buckler," at his off-the-record dinner with the press corps.

Apparently, many if not most recovering alcoholics avoid non-alcoholic beers because they do contain some alcohol, and may in some cases trigger a relapse of drinking.

Any experts out there? E-mail me at froomkin@washingtonpost.com .

Karl Rove, Fashion Critic

In his pool report to colleagues yesterday, The Washington Post's Peter Baker noted the following: "Karl Rove was with POTUS and evidently unimpressed with your pooler's wardrobe, obtained at the all-night Wal-Mart in Waco last night thanks to American Airlines' impeccable talent for losing luggage. 'Wear a tie or at least a coat!' the deputy chief of staff admonished from his van as the pool ran by. No time to ask if he had an extra to spare."

Baker e-mailed me a rundown on what he was wearing: "White button-down shirt, blue jeans, incredibly uncomfortable black shoes that some people seem to think look too much like boots."