Dear Mr. McClellan,

First, in the interests of full disclosure, I would like to describe myself as a big fan of your work. Being under the hot lights at the White House press briefing defending controversial administration policies every day can be a thankless task, but you have handled your tenure there with aplomb, especially following in the footsteps of such a consummate pro like Ari Fleischer. (Didn't you just love it when he announced in the week following 9/11 that Americans now "had to watch what they say"?)

You've served admirably as the administration's mouthpiece, deftly outmaneuvering the feisty White House Press Corps at every turn, spinning straw into gold on so many losing issues for the Bush administration—privatizing Social Security, maintaining that Abu Ghraib was just the result of a "few bad apples," and so on. You also possess a good deal of poise, seemingly lacking the brittle, fight-or-flight defensive crouch of Mr. Fleischer, who was often needlessly dogmatic and combative, qualities that served as a lightning rod for his critics.

I did want to make mention, however, of the Jeff Gannon contretemps. In case you've forgotten, Jeff Gannon was the Talon News reporter who attended daily press briefings for two years. As you may recall, the Standing Committee of Correspondents, the normal accrediting organization for White House press passes, wouldn't provide Gannon with credentials, citing questionable ties between Talon News and its wealthy Republican backers in Texas, some of the same people who were behind that terrific Kerry smear campaign, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. You might also recall the January 26 presidential press conference at which Gannon (whose real name turned out to be James D. Guckert, and who may have been running a gay escort service through a Web site; can you confirm that for me?) slipped in the jab that the Democrats were "divorced from reality" in a question to the president about Social Security. This sent the rabid liberal blogosphere into a tizzy. They subsequently found out that Gannon had been exploiting a loophole in the credentialing process, whereby he could get daily access to briefings through your office; and of course the whole Talon News/Republican operative/gay escort thing. (Thank God the media haven't made more of the gay escort angle, huh? )

Why am I bringing up the whole sordid Gannon business again? Well, it's because of something you said, and I'd like to offer my help. At a press briefing following the Gannon affair, you pleaded ignorance to the special consideration that Guckert (oops! I mean Gannon, sorry!) received from your office and his ties to known Republican agents, stating: "In this day and age, when you have a changing media, it's not an easy issue to decide, to try and pick and choose who is a journalist."

I couldn't agree more with that assessment. Technology, especially the Internet, is changing the way that we think of journalism; it's not like the old days when you knew a journalist by his fedora and raincoat. Today, anybody can hang out a shingle on the Internet and call him- or herself a journalist. However, I think there are certain criteria that might help you figure out at least who is not a journalist, thereby saving you from Gannon-type sticky situations in the future.

What follows is a partial list of people I believe you should be suspect of, and think twice about credentialing if they should come calling for such. (I might also suggest, as a rule, allowing the Standing Committee of Correspondents to handle all the credentialing, as they are all working journalists and have a fairly good grip on what constitutes a working journalist.)

Armstrong Williams. Mr. Williams accepted payment of $240,000 from the Department of Education for promoting the No Child Left Behind Act on TV and in a syndicated newspaper column. (FYI: Taking money from someone you're writing about is no-no in journalism.) Williams himself maintains that he is not a journalist—he has no formal training as such—and that he is only an "entrepreneur."

Maggie Gallagher. Ms. Gallagher vigorously defended President Bush's push for a $300 million initiative encouraging marriage as a way of strengthening families in her syndicated column in 2002. Ms. Gallagher, however, failed to mention that she had a $21,500 contract with the Department of Health and Human Services to help promote the president's proposal.

Michael McManus. Mr. McManus, a marriage advocate whose syndicated column, "Ethics & Religion," appears in 50 newspapers, received $10,000 to promote the Bush marriage initiative.

Glad to have been of some assistance.

—Brian K. Mahoney