The Washingtonian's National Editor Harry Jaffe has this interesting piece on who will be covering the White House this term for the various news outlets [via the Political Wire]. He leads by reporting that The Post's Dana Milbank, long a skeptic of the administration, will be moving away from the White House beat to a front section editorial spot.

Moving Milbank off the front lines is part of the Post’s strategy for covering the second Bush term. The Post is changing its entire team of White House reporters. Milbank, Mike Allen, and Amy Goldstein are out; Mike Fletcher, Jim VandeHei, and Peter Baker are in.

[...]

The Post will be competing with a New York Times trio that will stay from the first term: Elisabeth Bumiller, David Sanger, and Richard Stevenson. At the Los Angeles Times, Warren Vieth and Peter Wallsten will join Ed Chen to cover the White House. The Wall Street Journal assigned John McKinnon and Christopher Cooper to handle the new term.

But as Times Washington bureau chief Phil Taubman says, there’s more than the Post and other big dailies out there.

“The old days when you could count your competitors on one hand is long gone,” says Taubman. “If there’s a good story on a blog site, that’s competition.” [emphasis added]

Covering this White House is one of the toughest reporting jobs out there. The doublespeak peddled by this adminsitration is unrivalled. These reporters may have done a decent job in the first term, but they're really going to have to keep their guard up for the next four years to make sure the Bushies don't pull any more fast ones on the American people.