yancey strickler with a brief but insightful post re: Boys on the Bus, Timothy Crouse's history of the White House press corps during Nixon.

speaking of which, the idea of careerism and the white house press corps (especially today) has always fascinated me. if you are a rabblerouser doing the type of reporting that reporters are supposed to do, then you're not going to last long in this administration's briefing room. its two-fold: you want to keep your high-profile position that will surely lead to something more lucrative (why do you think cnn's john king is still doing the obligatory white house west stand-up in front of the hay bale?), and if you write something that pisses off the white house communications office, bloomp! there goes your access. in essence, they have reporters by the balls, right where they want them. the solution to this? one positive is the development of people like josh marshall, bloggers who wont swallow mclellan's rhetoric from the podium verbatim, and have developed enough influence (hill and beyond), to set an agenda and keep things in the spotlight that need to be. its not the be all end all, but its a good start.

my question is, the way things are now, why even have a white house briefing room?