As I've always said, the issue of "are bloggers journalists" matters not (or at least it should not matter) a whit to bloggers, journalists, or their viewers/readers but it is a very big deal to the 'gatekeepers' of the world. Bush's gatekeepers recently decided that the J-tent, if you'll let me call it that, was big enough for another ten to enter. And the new ten in the tent just happen to be bloggers:

President Reaches Out to a Friendly Circle in New Media

The day after his prime-time speech on Iraq, President Bush sat down for a round-table interview not with traditional White House reporters but with bloggers who focus on military issues, including two participating by video link from Baghdad.

Judging from some of the accounts of the Friday meeting, the president offered up little news. Here is what one of the 10 bloggers, Ward Carroll of Military.com, described from his notes as some of Bush's most notable comments:

• "This strategy is my strategy."

• "I'm defining a horizon of peace."

• "I don't mind people attacking me. . . . That's politics . . . but I do mind people impugning the integrity of our generals."

Still, the hour-long meeting in the Roosevelt Room offered Bush another opportunity to break through what he sees as the filter of the traditional news media, while also reaching out to the providers of a new source of information for soldiers, their families and others who follow the conflict in Iraq closely... [Read the rest of the story]