But if Bush had done it . . .

Imagine the frothing furor that would have erupted from the media if the G.. W. Bush White House had tried to pull this stunt:

The president recently wrote a 1,200-word essay titled “Why We Need Health Care Reform.” It was not distributed by the White House press office or issued as a press release. It was, instead, made available exclusively to The New York Times Syndicate.

On Monday, papers around the country received an offer to buy the president’s words through a special arrangement with the syndicate. The Post-Star and other papers with fewer than 50,000 subscribers, for instance, could have the president’s essay for the special price of $125.