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TO: White House Correspondents' Association RE: White House Briefing Room DATE: March 16, 2007 The White House Correspondents' Association met today to review plans for the renovated West Wing Briefing Room and the seating assignments. The new briefing room will consist of 49 seats: 7 rows and 7 seats per row. In the old briefing room, we had 8 rows and 6 seats per row. This new configuration required us to make several adjustments to the seating arrangement, which is a White House Correspondents' Association responsibility. As a board, we decided to move CNN to the first row. This decision...

The passing of President Gerald Ford is a reminder that the Republican Party was once led by political moderates who have now been replaced by members of the radical right (read that as "neocons") and evangelicals. Ford, who had served as House Republican leader, vice president and president, understood that politics is the art of compromise. He had many friends on the opposite side of the political aisle who heartily supported his nomination to be Richard M. Nixon's vice president when Spiro Agnew was forced to step down in 1973 amid bribery allegations. That doesn't mean Ford was not a...

While Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi and President George W. Bush chat over lunch, Helen Thomas and Marc Sandalow can only speculate about what's on the menu. An olive branch from Bush, maybe? Other questions Helen considers: How will Bush deal with the new Congress? How will Pelosi handle the more conservative members of her party? Will anything change in Iraq? And will the Dems try and impeach the President?

If the Democrats win control of the House in the Nov. 7 midterm elections, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., would likely be the first woman in U.S. history to become speaker of the House. The holder of that post is No. 2 in the line of succession for the presidency, right behind the vice president. Democrats need to win 15 seats to gain control of the House from the Republicans who have been in the majority since 1994. If they win, some Democrats have been hinting that they would use their new powers to launch some edgy investigations of the reasons...

WASHINGTON -- Former Secretary of State James Baker is riding to the rescue of President Bush. So what else is new? Baker has been there many times before for the Bush family -- to pull their chestnuts out of the fire. This time it appears he is being called to help President Bush finesse his way out of the Iraqi debacle and save face. Baker is a master at resolving tricky situations, and he does it with a smile. He is the Republican co-chairman of a bipartisan panel, called "The Iraq Study Group," created last March with a nudge from...

Fearless White House correspondent Helen Thomas has covered nine presidents, and says Bush is undoubtedly the worst. It was the talk of the blogosphere: As part of Stephen Colbert's eviscerating roast of President Bush at the annual White House Correspondents' Association Dinner in April -- wonkish Washington's equivalent of the Oscars -- he showed a hilarious video that was supposedly an "audition" for the job of White House press secretary. His costar in the satiric short: none other than the octogenarian doyenne of White House correspondents, Helen Thomas. Using actual TV footage of the White House press corps, Colbert (of...