What if "Wash Post" Hired Bush as Blogger?
    By Greg Mitchell
    Editor & Publisher

    Saturday 25 March 2006

With Ben Domenech forced to quit his new blog, The Washington Post says it is looking for another conservative to replace him. Obviously, experience as a journalist is not required. Here's what might happen if the paper's Web site went all the way and hired George W. Bush.

    The Washington Post announced last night (play along with me here, folks) that President George W. Bush had agreed to replace Ben Domenech as the "Red America" blogger at the newspaper's popular Web site. Bush contributed his first Web posting today, in which he thanked his old rival, Al Gore, for "inventing the internets."

    Domenech had been forced out Friday amid charges of rampant plagiarism. Jim Brady, executive editor of washingtonpost.com, said that he was searching for a conservative to replace Domenech, but the quick Bush hiring still came as a surprise. A Post spokesman said, "Last time we hired someone for that blog who had worked for the White House. So why not go straight to the top?"

    The spokeman said the Post was confident the president had never plagiarized because "he hasn't written anything himself since college"-but this time, unlike in the Domenech case, "we spent a few minutes googling just to make sure." He added that the Post does not screen bloggers for "misleading statements or outright lies" in their past.

    Asked how the president could blog and govern at the same time, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan explained, "He has promised to stay up late each night, until 10 p.m., to work on it - in his pajamas, as is customary for bloggers, we understand."

    Brady had hoped to hire a real reporter this time, but the Post apparently decided it could not pass up another partisan non-journalist. Bush, in his opening post today, claimed that he was not really all that partisan, since he "disagrees with the president" on certain issues, citing the Harriett Miers appointment and the Dubai port deal.

    Press Secretary McClellan said he was "fairly sure" that Bush, unlike Domenech, had never called Coretta Scott King a "communist" when she died since, "after all, he did attend her funeral," but "you never know."

    He added that the White House had convinced the Post that Bush, contrary to rumor, had not made inflammatory remarks posting under the name "Bluto" at National Review Online.

    Asked about the ethics of the president receiving pay from the Post, McClellan explained that the money would be donated to charity - Neil Bush's software company.

    President Bush's first blog post today opened: "David Gregory, eat your heart out."

    He went on to defend homeschooling, recent criticism of the movie "Red Dawn," and his Sammy Sosa trade ("I knew he would do 'roids eventually, and you know how I feel about drugs"). The president revealed that he had walked out of a private screening of "V for Vendetta" at the White House when he realized it was not the sequel to Jim Carrey's "The Mask." He closed his first blog entry by asking, "Now, who is this Froomkin guy?"

    According to the president, besides blogging, he would be willing to do some "godcasting" for the Post site.

    A Post spokesman said the Web site, in pursuit of balance, was now looking to hire "a liberal Republican."