Separation of Powers? Leave Prez's BlackBerry Out of It

The 44th president will almost certainly kick off his term by quitting email cold turkey, Jamie Sneider writes in the Weekly Standard. With executive-branch communication subject to public-disclosure law, President Bush hasn't send a single message, the former White House aide says—a coping mechanism that "fails to strike the right balance."

"While broadcasts of the State of the Union capture many ill-mannered congressmen thumbing through emails on their Blackberries, President Bush and Vice President Cheney have been effectively denied this staple of modern political communications," Sneider tut-tuts at legislators who face no such e-scrutiny. Perhaps, he notes, a peek at Rep. William Jefferson's email could have helped explain the $90,000 in his freezer. (More email stories.)