Today’s Yeas & Nays has a great piece about White House press secretary Dana Perino.  Headline:  “Subtler than Snow, funnier than McClellan.”

An excerpt:

American Urban Radio’s April Ryan says Perino is “straightforward, but can inject personality.”

“She has a comfort in front of the camera that McClellan never had,” Ryan said.

Mason’s favorite example of Perino’s style of humor occurs once a year. “Every year on the anniversary of ‘Mission Accomplished,’ reporters come into the briefing room with guns blazing, demanding a mea culpa from the White House. When it was his turn, Tony let the briefing devolve into a massive argument about the meaning of the banner and who did what when. Dana this year just scoffed at the whole thing, saying it’s the news media’s most favorite day of the year and turning it back on the room. End of discussion.”

What did that encounter look like?  Let’s go to the tape … and Helen Thomas.

Scott McCllelan on ….

“The O’Reilly Factor,” June 2:

“I have a lot of personal affection for him. … I still have personal affection for him. … you’ve got to separate your personal affection from his actions and deeds.”

on NPR, June 2:

“I still have a great personal affection for the president.”

“Meet the Press,” June 1:

“I tell you, I continue to have a lot of affection for the president.”

CNN, May 30:

“I’m someone that has great affection for the president.”

CBS, May 30:

“Someone who I still have great personal affection for.”

ABC, May 29:

“I have a lot of personal affection for him.”

“Today Show,” May 29:

“I continue to have great affection for George W. Bush to this day.”

But sometimes, apparently, personal affection doesn’t mean as much.

AP, May 30

“I felt it was important to step back from my personal affection for the president and take a good hard look at the truth.”

Gotta love this Marc Ambinder item:

Ed Gillespie, gaggling to reporters today in Saudi Arabia, said that the White House really meant to Get Carter, not Obama:

“We did not anticipate that it would be taken that way, because its kind of hard to take it that way when you look at the actual words. … There was some anticipation that someone might say you know its an expression of rebuke to former President Carter for having met with Hamas. that was something that was anticipated but no one wrote about it or raised it.”

Good to see clarity in White House messaging.  Much better than this…

When we saw that White House spokesman Tony Fratto said this today about what Chuck Schumer has been saying recently …

“The critics out there have been pretty irresponsible with their language, not only in talking about a recession. We have people like Chuck Schumer talking about the Great Depression. Well, I can tell you, my dad was around during the Great Depression and he would have loved to have seen 5 percent unemployment instead of the 20 percent or 25 percent unemployment that we saw in the Great Depression. So there’s been some irresponsible chatter from people like Chuck Schumer and others.”

… we immediately thought of what Schumer has been saying before:

“Biking through New York’s boroughs in 2005, I thought about some old friends, Joe and Eileen Bailey. Though they are imaginary, I frequently talk to them.”

Apparently the Baileys have been chattering on the economy as well.

From today’s White House press briefing with Tony Fratto:

Q Tony, various cities are networking their government-owned surveillance cameras — New York, Chicago and now D.C. Is there any federal effort to sort of combine all that information?

MR. FRATTO: Not that I’m aware of, not in terms of video surveillance. I know lots of municipalities do it for different reasons, some just for speeding tickets. And having been the victim myself of those cameras, on, like, two occasions now, I’m well aware of how effective they are. But I’m not aware of any federal coordinating role on those.

Q You know you just made the bloggers happy. (Laughter.)

MR. FRATTO: I’m sure I did.

We love it when we can throw the red flag on folks who violate the Logan Act.  We love it even more when it involves Jimmy Carter.  And we love it even most when, for evidence, we can cite National Public Radio.  Here’s Daniel Schorr on “Things Considered”:

The Logan Act bans unauthorized U.S. citizens from negotiating with a foreign government. It was passed in 1799, and there are no recorded prosecutions under the law. Why is it an issue now? Two words: Jimmy Carter.

Click here for the audio.

By the way, where does the White House stand on all this Carter foreign policy freelancing?

From Wednesday’s press briefing with Dana Perino:

Q Thank you, Dana. Two questions. The AP in Kuwait quotes Secretary of State Rice as saying, “The United States is not going to deal with Hamas. And we had certainly told President Carter that we did not think meeting with Hamas was going to help.” And my question: Since the result of this telling was that Mr. Carter proceeded directly to violate this U.S. policy and meet with these terrorists, what is President Bush prepared to do to put an end to this one-man defiance of our policy which so gratified the terrorists?

MS. PERINO: Well, former President Carter is a private citizen, and he made a decision to not comply with what the State Department asked him to do. What I think the President would focus on is, if you go back to what reportedly Hamas said to former President Carter, that they were willing to take these steps for peace, that the very next day, that they went ahead and murdered many people at the Gaza crossing. And I think actions speak louder than words, and we remain very concerned about the situation. That’s why Secretary Rice was in the region.

Q If the President, as our nation’s chief law enforcer, fails to order Mr. Carter’s passport revoked, how many more people like Carter may want to plot U.S. policy in this regard, do you imagine?

MS. PERINO: I don’t know, you’ll have to take a national survey.

So sad to hear about the rice shortage.

Of course, it being Passover right now, I’m not directly affected.  Can’t eat it during Passover (unless I’m Sephardic, of course, which I’m not, but I sure do love those folks).
Still, once Passover is over, you bet I’ll be outraged about the rice shortage.  Should I even blame President Bush?

It wouldn’t be without precedent.

Please join me in remembering Bob Schieffer’s question to President Bush in an October 2004 debate with John Kerry:

Mr. President, to you. We’re talking about protecting ourselves from the unexpected, but the flu season is suddenly upon us, flu kills thousands of people every year, suddenly we find ourselves with a severe shortage of flu vaccine. How did that happen?

YES!  HOW … DID … THAT …. HAPPEN?!

Oh, sorry, I joined the outrage there a moment.

Maybe, to solve rice in the White House, we need Rice in the White House?

… lay off the psychedelic “party” eggs.

We don’t want a repeat of what happened last year.

…. No Flash Photography Or Video Cameras Permitted …

… Leave Single Bills On The Dance Platform …

… Do Not Approach The Pole …

… No Spitting, No Lewd Behavior, No Women …

… Two Drink Minimum (Juice then Tea) …

… Violators Will Be …. AAAAIIIIIEEEEEE!!!!!…

White House caption:  Sword dancers pose for a photograph Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2008, as they await the arrival of President George W. Bush to Al Murabba Palace in Riyadh. The President spent his last day in Saudi Arabia participating in a roundtable, visiting the King’s Palace and National History Museum, and spending the evening at Al Janadriyah, the King’s ranch. White House photo by Eric Draper

When the White House starts a blog, well, we take notice.

Of course, “blog” is probably an overly generous description to describe “Trip Notes from the Middle East.”   But judge for yourself by clicking here.

We’re still mulling over this photo:  “White House Counselor Ed Gillespie at work on the Mideast Trip Notes Thursday, Jan. 10, 2008, at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem.”

But those zany White House bloggers aren’t the only ones visiting Israel these days.

We were alerted to this item running in the Virginia blog Farewell Frank:

Three Republican members of Congress — Frank Wolf of Virginia and Congressional Pro-Life Caucus co-chairs Chris Smith of New Jersey and Joseph Pitts of Pennsylvania — are in Israel this week lobbying for an abortion ban there.

Would love to know where that issue ranks in the minds of most Israelis.