Michael Kingsley speaks directly to the sort of one-way flow of information to the White House that I have been discussing here for some time. Kingsley notes, for example, "When he [Bush] is trying to send a message to the public, Bush prefers to have it go out unfiltered. He feels, for example, that the "good news about Iraq" is getting filtered out by the national media. "Somehow you just got to go over the heads of the filter and speak directly to the American people," [Bush] said. He's got a bully pulpit and all presidents have used it. I can't complain about that--it's just the way things are.

What is scary is this: according to Kingsley, But when he is on the receiving end, Bush prefers his news heavily filtered. "I glance at the headlines, just to get kind of a flavor," he told Brit Hume of Fox News last month. But, "I rarely read the stories" because "a lot of times there's opinions mixed in with news." Instead, "I get briefed by [White House Chief of Staff] Andy Card and Condi [Rice, the national security adviser] in the morning."

Apparently, Bush actually believes that Andy and Condi tell it to him straight. I guess in his impoverished educational experience, George never read "The Emperor's New Clothes." Dang. If he'd only grown up under the blessed cover of the No Child Left Behind act, he may have had a fighting chance.

Seriously though, if our President has so little understanding of the media that he believes what he says, I hold little hope of him understanding the implicit assumptions and policy implications of the numbers in the budget or the strategic and political forces at work in the Middle East from Palestine in the west to Afghanistan in the East. Of course, he always can ask Andy or Condi what they mean. They'll give him the straight, unbiased scoop.

Read Kingsley's whole article here: http://slate.msn.com/id/2089915/