Newswatch Thomas Griffith: Drumbeat of Criticism

The most meaningless and banal question in White House news coverage is when does the President's honeymoon end. If it is a honeymoon between President and press, the marriage never existed.

Tentative judgments about a new President are not the same thing: public and press want to give every new man a chance (there have been too many failed presidencies of late); it also takes the press a while to size up how a President and his new appointees respond to situations. Honeymoons are customarily proclaimed to be at an end when a frustrated President takes to blaming the...

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