Wonkette

The job of the White House press secretary is to lie about what the president is doing and cover up what the administration has already done. It’s not an easy job, which is why so many spokesmen have recently quit to spend more time with Andy Card’s family. MORE »

George W. read some jokes at the “Alfalfa Club” dinner on Saturday, and it really shows he can laugh at the smoking ruins of the nation he destroyed and the monsters he set loose upon the Earth. Some of his comedy gold, courtesy of the WaPo: MORE »

It’s been an exciting week in hating The Note. To recap:

• Dan Froomkin kicked things off on the 7th with a denial that he’s in the gang of 500 and a terse take-down of our “increasingly impenetrable, uninsightful and turgid” friends at the Political Unit.

• Then the Washington Monthly published an excerpt from Eric Boehlert’s book. The piece is a fun collection of The Note’s pet stories that, despite their best efforts, amounted to nothing. Remember the David Rosen story? No?
• HuffPo’s Rachel Sklar, friend of Wonkette, picks up trail and attacks them where it hurts: right in their stupid daily email blast.
• And our too-rich-and-too-thin New York sister learns, finally, of the pain we suffer every day. And we Note: Why the hell have ABC publicists started sending out obtuse excerpts from the Note without explanation? They’re not newsworthy, and, quite often, they’re lies. Anyone care to explain that?

After the jump, we’ll decode today’s Note.

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* The big news of the week: according to a new court filing in the Scooter Libby prosecution, Libby testified that he leaked information about a National Intelligence Estimate with the specific permission of President Bush. MORE »

The Washington Post ombudsman this week drew attention to the confusion some readers experience regarding Dan Froomkin’s “White House Briefing,” which is not actually written by someone officially covering the White House. Actual White House reporters were said to grumble as well, fretting that Froomkin’s left-of-center snark lost them points in the media-sensitive Bush administration; they’re already working out from under what’s known as the “Milbank deficit.” In today’s WashingtonPost.com chat, credentialed WP WH correspondent Peter Baker put things in perspective:

Austin, Tex.: I might as well ask (I’m sure you’re getting a lot of this) - but what is your take on Froomkin and his column? Do you get a lot of flak about it from peers and sources at the White House? Do White House staffers ever comment on his column to you?
Peter Baker: Can’t say any White House staffer has ever mentioned Dan’s column to me, at least not that I recall.

Oh no you didn’t! MORE »

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has launched a new website, devoted to his investigation of Plamegate. But as Fitzgerald spokesman Randall Samborn told WaPo’s Dan Froomkin, it’s “still a work in progress.” Meaning? No Cheney mug-shot T-shirts for sale yet, just a bunch of press releases and stuff. Also, they’re having problems with “some document formatting issues that [they're] still resolving.” So, indictments as soon as they learn HTML? Or maybe just Fitzgerald’s favorite ’80s bands as soon as he learns to podcast? Either way, we can hardly wait. — GREG BEATO MORE »

The WP’s Dan Froomkin evinces some concern today for President Bush’s place on the wagon. Apparently, at last week’s off-the-record shin-dig with the scribes, Bush drank a non-alcoholic beer. Ding ding ding! Frets Froomkin, “many if not most recovering alcoholics avoid non-alcoholic beers because they do contain some alcohol, and may in some cases trigger a relapse of drinking.” Now, it may be true that drinking non-alcoholic beer can lead to a relapse (which is why we stick to gin), but did we miss a car in the logic train? Bush may not drink alcohol any more, but he’s never said he was an alcoholic. What he’s said is that “When I was young and foolish, I was young and foolish.” Unfortunately, that’s where he’s had the relapse. MORE »

Dan Froomkin of the “White House Briefing” gets up on his high horse about Bush’s off-the-record barbecue with the WH press corps, but this time he has company: “And later, a small handful watched askance as the rest fawned over Bush, following him around in packs every time he moved.” How big do you think that “small handful” got by the time the press vans got back to the hotel? We wouldn’t be surprised if Froomkin’s scolding has the cranky Crawford corps in a snit, though we’d argue that there’s nothing wrong in and of itself with sucking up to someone to get a story. It’s the stabbing in the back afterward that we miss. MORE »