So, wp.com is considering hiring another blogger to balance out Froomkin. How do you balance out a writer who's stated goal is to encourage reporters who hold the President (whoever happens to be President) accountable? Is there someone actually willing to argue that we need more rent-boy scribed puff pieces?

for highlighting the partisan dumping on Froomkin from the Post's White House reporters. It gives the lie to the notion that Woodward was a renegade celebrity ideologue and shows other areas of the newsroom have fallen into complicity. In my mind, WP has completely fallen out of the running as a credible alternative to the New York Times as the nation's newspaper of record.

Readers who read a blog titled "White House Briefing" will soon realize it's not actually a White House reporter _only_ if they are native English speakers and understand American politics. Assuming this on the Internet is not the most intelligent assumption, and it testifies to the insularity of much of the blogosphere from even its own customer base.

Second, many readers may be misled when a link is provided to the "White House Briefing" at the Washington Post or the author is Froomkin is quoted that way. The New York Times and Washington Post find themselves lambasted for stuff in the opinions section all the time; making the title slightly misleading definitely won't help keeping reporting and editorial separate in the minds of uneducated readers.

On 14 December Froomkin carries an excerpt of Brian William's interviews with President Bush in which Bush admits that he reads one newspaper:

Bush: "I don't see a lot of the news. Every morning I look at the newspaper. I can't say I've read every single article in the newspaper. But I definitely know what's in the news.(...)I read the newspaper. I mean, I can tell you what the headlines are. I must confess, if I think the story is, like, not a fair appraisal, I'll move on. But I know what the story's about."

My question: Could it be that John Harris' diffidence, his real concern, relates to this one VIP reader? Of course, such a question assumes that Bush was telling the truth when he said he read "the" newspaper.