Blogs: Good or Evil?

"Stop helping media foes. The New York Times does not deserve leaks, exclusives or anything beyond its subscription fees. Leaking to the Times, America's most obsessively anti-Bush major newspaper, is like handing one's bitterest critic a loaded gun and awaiting good news. Bush also let the Times publish his exclusive August 2001 op-ed on stem cells. Why? . . .

"Bush's next article should appear on The Wall Street Journal editorial page. Make New York Times reporters gnash their teeth as they quote from the president's exclusive interview with New York Post correspondent Deborah Orin. Chuckle as incoming CBS newsreader Katie Couric airs footage of the president's tete-a-tete with Fox News Channel's Wendell Goler. By favoring the center-right media, the president will enhance their prestige while the anti-Bush establishment media play catch-up."

In other words, the White House press secretary should act like a right-wing talk show host.

Peggy Noonan sees Snow's arrival as giving the White House a fresh chance: "The sense of newness will last for a while because the reporters who tell us the news need a storyline. They need, as they say, a narrative. The narrative they will go with now is: 'Staff Changes Being Felt Throughout White House/May Signal Policy Changes.' The next story line will either be 'Staff Changes Fail to Stop Listless Drift' or 'Shakeups Yielded New Dynamism.'

"So the story now is change, and the story a few months from now is the change that change wrought As a public face of the White House, Tony Snow will likely get a good start. His remarks to the press--'Believe it or not, I want very much to work with you' -- were gracious, and showed legitimate sympathy for the press corps. They have hard jobs and operate under many pressures, from uncomprehending editors in the bubble back in the newsroom to officials who try to jerk them around to executive producers in New York who don't like their hair.

"(One of the best White House correspondents I ever knew, a woman of seriousness and sophistication who threw the ball straight down the middle, was removed from her assignment, her career thwarted, because she'd committed the sin of not being considered pretty enough by her boss. Before she was removed she had to spend half her time getting new clothes and haircuts and makeup. This so she could do a serious job with expertise and spirit. TV is absurd. If only she'd give us the name!

"Mr. Snow's White House press briefings are going to be nice to watch. The press does not want to appear to be ungracious and oppositional. They have an investment in demonstrating that the tensions each day in Scott McClellan's press briefings, with David Gregory's rants and Helen Thomas's free-form animosities, were the fault of Mr. McClellan, not the press. So they will start out gracious with Tony."

A number of prominent Washington Post correspondents are considering the company's generous buyout offer, reports Washingtonian's Harry Jaffe.

Oh, and that Harvard student, Kaavya Viswanathan, who just happened to unintentionally and unconsciously copy large chunks of another author's book? Little, Brown has intentionally and consciously reversed itself and is recalling the thing, reports the New York Times.