Feeding the Beast: The White House Versus the Press.

• Author: Wolfson, Lewis

Ever since Teddy Roosevelt brought journalists in from the rain and gave them a room in the White House, we have had this peculiarly American phenomenon of presidents inviting some of their worst tormentors to live under the same roof. It is like having a bunch of sullen teenagers in your basement--sassing you, eating your food, and constantly judging you.

Feeding the Beast, by U.S. News White House reporter Kenneth Walsh, is a smooth yarn about the guilt, grievances, and dogged triumphs of the White House press corps, and about presidents' mystical yearning to create a bond with Americans by going through, around, and over the heads of journalists. Walsh, rightly proud of what the press corps accomplishes, is also disturbed by reporters' rush to judgment on politicians. He deplores the "smart aleck journalism and wise-guy punditry" that give the press corps a bad name. And he feels that too many Washington journalists have become isolated from the "real" America and are busier trying to "impress political insiders, or each other," than inform the public.

Walsh has watched three presidents up close for 10 years, and he clearly has a soft spot for George Bush, the only recent president (besides Gerald Ford) whom the press corps came close to liking. Though Bush had a lack of vision and underwhelming ambitions, he had the kind of Washington experience journalists value. He did not seem calculating or vindictive. And who wouldn't get a kick out of tooling around in the president's cigarette boat in Kennebunkport?

In contrast, Clinton flunked the press's likability test. It is still something of a mystery why the man who could charm Newt Gingrich poked a finger in the eye of the White House correspondents who were so important to him. The White House crew tried to isolate the press room and skip around the journalists with town meetings and MTV. Still, it wasn't the press's pique with the President that put him in the doghouse, but the country's disappointment over the fumbles of this unknown Arkansas governor whom many Americans had bet on to be a quick learner.

Walsh pictures his fellow White House reporters as among the most hard-working and careful of journalists. He says that it is no wonder they often feel "cantankerous, rude and...