Meet the New Media Strategy

Here's the group photo .

Stolberg of the Times writes that the photo session then "ended with the representatives of the news media singing 'Happy Birthday to You' to the president."

She quotes Benedetto saying: "He asked if anyone had a birthday; I raised my hand. The next thing I knew I was standing there, asking myself, 'What am I doing here?' "

Excellent question.

One Memorable Sound Bite

James Travers writes in the Toronto Star: "In conversation here with George W. Bush and later with the press, Harper made it crystal clear the federal government's first priority is an open America. 'If the U.S. becomes more closed to its friends, the terrorists win,' he told reporters at the White House."

Larry King

Alessandra Stanley writes in the New York Times: "Mr. King gave the president a chance to defend his policies without risk of interruption or follow-up.

"At times, Mr. King even provided the president with answers. 'You've always had a lot of compassion for the Mexican people,' the interviewer interjected in a discussion of the president's immigration bill. Mr. Bush seemed a little surprised, but grateful. 'Yes, sir!' he replied. . . .

"Even when he ventured into areas like the war in Iraq, public opinion polls or the president's past friendship with Mr. Lay, Mr. King looked less like an interrogator than a hotel concierge gently removing lint from a customer's coat. Mr. King's questions rarely rile his guests; instead, his cozy, incurious style encourages them to expose themselves.

"And just as Liza Minnelli seemed to come unglued all on her own in her appearance on the show last March, Mr. Bush at times seemed tense and defensive even without needling from his host."

Here's the transcript of the interview.

A few notable points:

Bush asserted that he was prepared to shoot down a North Korean missile if it came to that: "If it headed to the United States, we've got a missile defense system that will defend our country."

The first lady said she doesn't believe the polls. "It's a sign, but it's not necessarily really what we see. I mean, when we travel around the country, when we visit with people, that's not what we hear all the time."

The president said: "I like to tell people I would rather be -- when history looks back, I'd rather be judged as solving problems and being correct, rather than being popular."

Bush called recently deceased former Enron chairman, corporate fraudster and major Bush campaign donor Ken Lay "a good guy" and said "my hope is that his heart was right with the Lord."

He refused to say anything one way or the other about embattled Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman, who is at risk of losing the Democratic primary on account of his close ties to Bush: "You're trying to get me to give him a political kiss, which may be his death."

Bush also offered a counterfactual analysis of what went wrong with the federal response to Hurricane Katrina. First he cited the "unbelievably heroic things" done by the government and said "there was a lot of ice and water delivered." The only problem he acknowledged: "Obviously, the thing that happened that needed to happen better was, how do you deal with a breakdown in law and order."

A Visit From the Ambassador

Deb Riechmann writes for the Associated Press about the Oval Office visit by Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to Baghdad.

"Bush expressed concern Thursday that some of Iraq's neighbors might be working against the fledging Iraqi government.

" 'We, of course, are concerned that some in the neighborhood may want to derail the progress of a free Iraq,' Bush said. 'And that is troubling and something that we'll work on.' "

Here's the transcript .

As a recent cable from Khalizad himself outlined, Iraq is plagued with all sorts of problems, including that conditions for women are becoming more and more abusive, there is no electrical power most of the day, and Iraqi security forces -- a group that is supposed to take charge as Americans step down -- are feared, not trusted.

Khalizad didn't get into any of that in public. Instead, over the course of his 35-second remarks, the ambassador wished Bush a happy birthday three times.

Pool reporter Pamela Hess, the United Press International Pentagon correspondent, wrote to the White House press corps: "No questions were taken, which was very sad for me because if you'd spent 5 months in Iraq, you'd have a few questions too."

She added: "I lagged behind a little because I wanted to ask Dan Bartlett who some of the people were in the room and then POTUS himself yelled out 'LETSGOLETSGOLETSGO' not in a nice cheerleading way but in a 'get out of my Oval' way, and it startled me, so I didn't check what time it ended."

On the Record?

Al Kamen writes in The Washington Post: "On-the-record comments from top White House officials have been precious few throughout this administration. Lately, though, national security adviser Stephen Hadley , legislative affairs chief Candida Wolff and White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten and his deputy Joel Kaplan all have talked on the record.

"Credit for this welcome development is being given to White House press secretary Tony Snow. . . .

"On the other hand, yesterday we find two senior administration officials briefing a roomful of reporters about what these unnamed officials called 'backsliding on democracy' in Russia. (Russian officials, in contrast, were on the record when they briefed reporters.)"

Karl Rove Watch

Amy Argetsinger and Roxanne Roberts write in The Washington Post about a sighting of "Karl Rove at the reopened National Portrait Gallery on Monday afternoon. Passersby gawked as the White House deputy chief of staff carefully viewed portraits of American presidents. Rove lingered at Ronald Reagan, cruised past Bill Clinton and spent some time staring at George H. W. Bush."

Froomkin on the Radio

I'm on Washington Post Radio today, shortly after 2 p.m.

Bush Talks to People

Well, People magazine .

People: "Could you and Al Gore ever be friends, like your dad and Bill Clinton?"

Bush: "I don't know. I know that Bill Clinton and I have got a very good relationship. In 2 1/2 years I'll be a member of the ex-Presidents club. But I'm very busy these days. I've got a lot to do, and so I'm really not worrying much about my post-presidency."

Krugman Watch

Paul Krugman writes in his New York Times opinion column (subscription required): "Over the last few months a series of revelations have confirmed what should have been obvious a long time ago: the Bush administration and the movement it leads have been engaged in an authoritarian project, an effort to remove all the checks and balances that have heretofore constrained the executive branch.

"Much of this project involves the assertion of unprecedented executive authority -- the right to imprison people indefinitely without charges (and torture them if the administration feels like it), the right to wiretap American citizens without court authorization, the right to declare, when signing laws passed by Congress, that the laws don't really mean what they say.

"But an almost equally important aspect of the project has been the attempt to create a political environment in which nobody dares to criticize the administration or reveal inconvenient facts about its actions. And that attempt has relied, from the beginning, on ascribing treasonous motives to those who refuse to toe the line. . . .

"Those of us who tried to call attention to this authoritarian project years ago have long marveled over the reluctance of many of our colleagues to acknowledge what was going on."