Rove's Risky Embrace

"Unless one or both Bushes are traveling, they usually are back upstairs in the White House residence quarters by 5:30 p.m. or 6 p.m. for dinner, and are often joined by their 24-year-old twin daughters, Barbara and Jenna.

" 'One of them was just living with us, but she just has moved out,' said Laura Bush, who usually is tightlipped about their daughters' doings. She was talking about Barbara, who is said to have recently left Washington for New York City.

" 'The other one lives in an apartment and is teaching school, she's a third-grade schoolteacher,' the first lady said, speaking of Jenna, who teaches in Washington."

Here's the transcript of the event. Said the president, at the outset: "I'm going to give a statement, then answer a couple of questions. Then we'll get the press out of here and have a dialogue."

Lively Online

I had a lively Live Online discussion yesterday. Read the transcript if you missed it.

Political Cartoon Humor

Tom Toles on the Bush bounce; Toles on Cheney's last throes; Mike Luckovich on Bush and the press; Tony Auth on the president and movies; Doug Marlette on Bush's firsts and lasts.

Political Cartoons: The Next Wave

Via Romenesko : Nick Madigan writes in the Baltimore Sun that Kevin Kallaugher, the former editorial cartoonist for The Sun, "has put together a digitally animated cartoon of Bush, a talking, grimacing, snickering caricature that could be a precursor to a whole set of similar digital images. . . .

"On a video screen at the Walters Art Museum, President Bush, standing at a lectern adorned with the presidential seal, mutters that he is ready to meet 'them pesky media types, the members of the real estate.'

"An aide, offscreen, corrects him. The press, he says, is known as the 'fourth estate.'

" 'Oh, right,' Bush responds out of the side of his mouth. 'I'm ready for them, too.' "