Today's echt-insider installment of the Note's advice to the White House macher class has inspired us to compose our own coy rhetorical Notley query to our fetching president: Really, why have Don Rumsfeld kick around the press, when the Halperinite Retinue of Livery-Clad Servants will do the same job, for free? Yes, Gang of 500, the twittering Notesters sure do have your number--laying out their own expert channeling of your innermost desires, based, as they report, on:

1/3 on content and "look-and-feel" analysis of the Old Media; 1/3 on expert table hopping in the last 24 hours at the Palm [What, has the gang been cast out of Lauriol plaza for lousy tipping?], the Oval Room, and the Regency; and 1/3 on trained gut(s).

And who exactly is doing the training of these expert, sycophantic "gut(s)"? We get an early clue with the smug announcement that the Notesters expect their wisdom is "guaranteed to be read aloud on "The Rush Limbaugh Show" today at around 12:20 pm ET." But Mr. Limbaugh, upright defender of the White House's beleaguered message of stalwartness though he is, is no Washington insider. How could the Note claim credentials so obvious, so broad--so, finally, recherche?

Alas, to glean an answer we must read on--and yes, pause briefly to note the same monotonous litany of apercus the Note grandly ascribes to "the dominant sweep" of DC press coverage: the media (or "the Old Media" at any rate) are rooting for early withdrawal from Iraq, a long lurid tour in the witness box for Jack Abramaoff, and three distinct approaches to derailing Samuel Alito's nomination.

OK, now that we've noted (er, Noted) the usual unadulterated horseshit, here's the money question:

How would Don Evans, Don Fierce, Don Sipple, Mary Matalin, Ken Duberstein, Ed Gillespie, Bill Kristol, Karen Hughes, Sig Rogich, and Mark McKinnon suggest the White House and its Hill allies solve this problem?

Perhaps we are about to find out.

Oh, Note, how you do toy with us! Just roll over in bed and ask them already! --HOLLY MARTINS

The Note: Rooting Interest [ABC News]