Did anyone check to see if Dana Milbank commented on the Rove shill who appeared and was called upon at Bush era Pres News Conferences, and who cruised the back hallways of the White House for weeks or months and who also ran a gasy military XXX web site?

Which one is read more? According to the Post's own website, 1.6 million read the Washington Post daily. (not clear if that is a combination of paper and internet.) The WP is behind the NY Daily News in readership (2.5 Mil), and about equal with the NYT.

HuffPost reports their readership for the month of April 2009 was 5.6 million. Now, that is certainly lower than the WP. However, the numbers have been RISING pretty consistently for a year.

So I think an outfit that has 5.6 million readers a month is justified in asking a question at a press conference.

because poor katherine graham needs to stop spinning in her grave. yikes, she may just fly right out...

They're statements about how much smarter bloggers are than the rest of humanity. In fact the answer they get back, if they get one back, is not relevant.

Unless they come from "Jeff Gannon"/Jim Guckert, right?

The objection to the blogger-in-the-press-conference was not 'OMG a blogger!' it was 'OMG the White House is planting questions!'. --jalmondale

Could you cite their source for this assertion? Could you demonstrate when you do so that it is a credible assertion? Did the blogger ever indicate that he was fed this question by powerful somebodies in the government?

It's possible that this rationale was concocted after the fact, in order to save these erstwhile John Cleese and Michael Palin imitators from horrid embarrassment. It's even more likely that it was based on a smidgen of truth, but under-researched and over-blown to suit their needs and prejudices.

for the court stenographers of the beltway press corp to whine about planted questions is frankly ludicrous

The same group that called Bush's summer camp a ranch and cheerleaded a war are hardly digging deep for their readers, they just take it down call for the other side to react and file it

just sayin

The objection to the blogger-in-the-press-conference was not 'OMG a blogger!' it was 'OMG the White House is planting questions!'. Still overblown drama-queen acting, but of a lightly more understandable variety. And not really supportive of the thesis of this piece.