The Note: Throat Clearing

ByABC News
June 2, 2005, 10:06 AM

— -- WASHINGTON, June 1

NEWS SUMMARY

Note to writers of daily morning political digests/tipsheets/newsletters/summaries: On any given day when you are planning to tell your readers it is going to be a slow news day, think again.

Note to political journalists everywhere: The three most reliable sources you can have are (1) a governor's chief of staff; (2) a receptionist in a Senate office; and, (3) a kid who blurts things out at camp. LINK

Note to Sy Newhouse: Beth Kseniak is a genius and deserves a substantial raise.

Note II to writers of daily morning political digests/tipsheets/newsletters/summaries: On any given day when you think a presidential news conference is going to dominate the news day, think again.

Note to America's young people: Whatever you do, please for heaven's sake do not bring back the hairstyles of the 1970s. LINK

Note to Washington Post Style section aide Chris Richards: You are awesome, dude, and have the best e-mail of the news cycle(as quoted in the New York Times : "'If you snagged the 'All the president's Men' file from the fourth-floor photo archive today, can you phone me.'")

Note to Ben Bradlee: Yes, using b-level, publishable profanity in quotes still works.

Note question to Fred Fielding: Are you SURE you didn't help Woodward and Bernstein too?

Note to Bob Woodward and the Felt family: "Follow the money" is still a pretty good rule of thumb.

Note I to Carl Bernstein: You may want to review VF story assignment policies with Graydon.

Note II to Carl Bernstein: "Contributing editor" is apparently not the same thing as "receiving editor."

Note to the MSM reporter who wants to be the first to reconcile the apparent discrepancies in what Deep Throat, as published, knew, and what Mark Felt, as the FBI's number two, could not have known: Don't let the blogosphere beat you to it!

President Bush a man whose views on Watergate are even murkier than his views on the Vietnam war welcomes South African President Thabo Mbeki to the White House today for a meeting and working lunch. The leaders will share some thoughts with the pool at the end of their 11:25 am ET session.

Later in the day, President Bush will meet with NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer. Among the topics on the agenda: how the United States and Europe can continue to strengthen their strategic partnership. Pool reporters will be ushered in to hear from the leaders at the conclusion of their 1:20 p.m. ET meeting.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will join the president for both Oval Office meetings. At 5:00 p.m. ET, Dr. Rice will meets with Iraq's Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari at the State Department. Dr. Rice and her Iraqi counterpart will come before cameras at approximately 5:30 p.m. ET in the Treaty Room.

At noon ET, Vice President Dick Cheney is scheduled to deliver the commencement address at United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, CO.

ABC News' Karen Travers reports, "Expect to hear a message similar to the president's remarks at the Naval Academy last Friday, an administration official tells ABC News. In his fifth commencement address as Vice President, Cheney will say that these graduating cadets do face new challenges and talk about those challenges. This official would not go into any more detail on Cheney's remarks and would not say if Cheney would address the base closing issue, as President Bush did last Friday."

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, will conduct a DoD news briefing at 11:00 am ET in the DoD Briefing Room.

White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan will gaggle off-camera at 9:45 am ET and do a more detailed repeat performance avec lights/camera/action at the 12:40 p.m. ET briefing.

Paul Wolfowitz has his first full day on the job today as President of the World Bank.

Sen./Dr./Leader Frist (R-TN) keynotes at the Department of Health Care Policy Fifth Annual Marshall J. Seidman Lecture at the Harvard Medical School at 1:30 p.m. ET in Boston, MA.

The talk is titled "Bioterrorism and the Rise of Infectious Disease: Combating the Greatest Global Threat of the 21st Century." (Let's see John McCain do THAT!!!)

Gov. John Lynch (D-NH) and Gov. John Baldacci (D-ME) will attend a 'Save the Shipyard' rally and join with the New Hampshire and Maine Congressional delegations for a meeting with commissioners from the Base Realignment and Closure Commission. The rally begins at 10:00 am ET and the (closed press) meeting with the BRAC commissioners is expected to begin at 11:00 am ET. There will be a 3:30 p.m. ET press availability.

At 4:30 p.m. ET today, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld holds an honor cordon to welcome Minister of Defense of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia Jovan Manasievski to the Pentagon.

Los Angeles Mayor-elect Antonio Villaraigosa addresses a Campaign for America's Future rally at 2:00p.m. ET in Washington, DC. At 1:00 p.m. ET, liberal media groups launch the conference's "progressive radio row."

At 3:45 p.m. ET, AFL-CIO political director Karen Ackerman, Celinda Lake, Donna Brazille, and Eli Pariser strategize for a new progressive majority. At 7:00 p.m. ET, luminaries honor John Kenneth Galbraith, Ellen Malcolm, and others for their contributions to the cause.

In East Windsor, NJ at 1:00 p.m. ET, Senator Jon Corzine (D-NJ) will detail his plan for property tax relief for New Jersey.

The Scripps Howard News Service hosts the 78th Annual Scripps National Spelling Bee today and tomorrow.

Deep Throat revealed: news of day:

The Vanity Fair story that started it all: LINK

The Washington Post wisely chose David Von Drehle to write the paper's must-read Deep Throat lede-all, complete with Woodward interview, word of Woodward's book and inside-the-newsroom stuff. LINK

New York Times ' Purdum gets news-of-day duties for the New York Times and got to write this fairly high up: " . . . . The Post , which had guarded the secret as closely as the formula for Coca-Cola, suddenly found itself scrambling to deal with a monthly magazine's scoop of the final footnote to the biggest story in its history." LINK