Yeah. What He Said.

Dan Froomkin's column says what I wished I had said the other day in my comments about how the media should deal with the White House these days.

It's about credibility. An excerpt:

There is a reason members of the press corps don't grill Bush on issues like his credibility. But it's not (as many of my readers often complain) because they're craven.

It's the structure of the relationship. At a typical press conference, there are in fact quite a few tough questions. Consider last week's press conference, when the newest Los Angeles Times White House reporter, James Gerstenzang, asked Bush if his defense of domestic spying wasn't basically a variation on President Nixon's "When the President does it, then that means it is not illegal."

Typically, however, Bush didn't actually answer the question -- choosing to respond with some generic comments about his authority. And, like many tough questions, it was not aggressively followed up. Bush does not tolerate multiple questions from a single reporter, and other reporters are loathe to give up their questions to repeat one from a colleague.