Imagine if Obama was the one granting unprecedented (in today's world) access to the press. It would surely be held up as an example of "change" Obama was bringing to presidential politics. Instead, we see that Obama is acting like all the other presidential candidates and playing by the current set of rules which require you to limit press access to in turn limit "mistakes". And of course if McCain is able to change the rules on the president/press relations ships to his advantage, I suspect that other candidates would follow (some being better able to bring it off than others).

The down side is that McCain is also spending a certain amount of "unproductive" time stroking the press. Or to put it another way, I would not feel good about a president who spent 'up to 8 hours a day' being available to the press. Of course you could make a reasonable argument that right now, given how he and all the other candidates serving in congress are not paying as much attention to their 'day job', that stroking the press is a very productive use of his time. More thought is needed on this, but it is intriguing.

To put it another way, would we be better off having a neutral observer with the president 24/7 with the restriction that what was observed couldn't be relayed until released or a set time after the president leaves office (say 20 to 50 years)? I would think as a nation we would be better off having a clear understanding of what "really" happened even if there was significant delays. I also think the knowledge that they would be "judged" by history, but only when all the facts were in, would be an excellent restraint on a president.

What is being described is a limited version of that. Reporters get much better insight into the candidate than any of the other candidates, but at the "cost" of not reporting slips of the tongue, jokes that fell flat, etc.

Now if there is something substantive that they don't report (and definitions of substantive can certainly vary between people), then that becomes more of an issue. But I suspect that there is a good dynamic between losing the access and reporting what is substantive. Further, if I were a reporter with what I thought was a substantive issue to raise, I would go to the candidate/press relations and put it on the table to get their side of the argument.

It’s a return to a bygone culture, wherein politicians let their guard down in front of reporters, who in turn operated under a professional code to not report on small gaffes or embarrassing incidents that had no impact on public policy.

Unfortunately, that era assumed - required, even - a certain level of basic journalistic competence and professionalism that simply doesn't exist today. The reporters of that era could reasonably be expected to ignore things that don't really impact ability to govern, like JFK's womanizing, but reveal things that really impacted the country, like the Pentagon Papers or the Watergate breakin. After seeing the travesties of recent years - Steno Sue and countless others spring to mind - I have no more faith in the integrity of modern "journalists" than I do in the politicians they cover.

It’s a return to a bygone culture, wherein politicians let their guard down in front of reporters, who in turn operated under a professional code to not report on small gaffes or embarrassing incidents that had no impact on public policy.

I'd prefer our press be antagonistic towards politicians, personally, although I do wish that antagonism was based on reasonable skepticism and not "gotcha" style reporting.

I can live with this "gentlemen's agreement" style of reporting so long as everybody is forthright about it.

She the journalists around Kennedy have reported on his extramarital affairs? Or were we better off knowing, as was the case during the Clinton administration?

Why exactly were we better off knowing that Clinton got a hummer?

She said she had spoken with some ex-pollsters of his who said he has a deeply irrational bad temper -- he would explode in rage at polling reports that weren't as favorable to him as he wished, was the kind of thing they relayed.

So now I wonder, are reporters privy to this, but keeping quiet so as not to lose their access? Does McCain have "anger management issues" to a degree that would affect the public's support for him? Who will tell us?