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ARI FLEISCHER: The President welcomed the development.

Q. So are you satisfied with it?

MR. FLEISCHER: The President welcomed it.

Q. So you’re saying he welcomed it? (Laughter.)

MR. FLEISCHER: Let me rephrase it. The President welcomed it. (Laughter.)

Q. Need to have a little ticker that gives translations. You know, this is what “welcomed” really means. (Laughter.)

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ARI FLEISCHER: …And before the President’s helicopter arrives, let me mention one thing that I just got a kick out of in today’s New York Times. There was a little bit of whining in the New York Times from the author of the note, I don’t know if you saw it –

Q. No.

MR. FLEISCHER: It’s about calling on reporters –

Q. Is this like a beat-up on the poolers?

MR. FLEISCHER: No. No, no, no, no. No, just the opposite. It was — I just want to give an assurance to everybody who comes to work every day at the White House that the people who sit in the rows behind the first or the second row are going to continue to be treated thesame way as always. And the White House has no intention of imposing a gag order on people who don’t sit in the first two rows.

My standard is always to treat people fair when they come to the White House and show up just like anybody who works for the big organizations in the White House. And everybody is still going to get their equal and fair chance to ask questions, despite the wishes of someone who no longer shows up for work at the White House every day and doesn’t know what it’s like to never get called on.

So that’s an assurance to the press. Fair and equal will continue. (Laughter.)

Q. Well, I’m sure our friends in the fourth, fifth and sixth rows will remind you of that.

MR. FLEISCHER: Did you see this?

Q. It’s an op-ed by Mark –

Q. Halperin?

Q. Yes.

Q. Halperin? (Laughter.)

MR. FLEISCHER: Thanks, everybody.

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ARI FLEISCHER: For the year? According to the — I just have no — I don’t know, I don’t keep track.

Q. It’s almost $120 million, isn’t it?

MR. FLEISCHER: Yes. Mark Knoller is the White House spokesman — (laughter.)

Q. Knoller’s on his way to Andrews. (Laughter.)

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ARI FLEISCHER: Jim, in a different seat?

Q. Yes. I was trying to shake you from this geographical hang-up that you have. (Laughter.)

MR. FLEISCHER: But you haven’t changed rows; you’ve just changed sides in the same row.

Q. I wanted to ease it in on you. I didn’t want to shock you too much –

MR. FLEISCHER: Horizontal move, not a vertical move? (Laughter.)

Q. Left to right. (Laughter.)

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Q. You said earlier that democracy is God-given. Didn’t Thomas Jefferson have something to do with it?

ARI FLEISCHER: I cited the Declaration of Independence as the author of our inalienable rights, written by –

Q. He’s the author of –

MR. FLEISCHER: That’s why I said it. Thomas Jefferson.

Q. I thought you said democracy is God-given.

MR. FLEISCHER: Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independent Rights that we hold our truths — the self-evident truths that these rights and liberties are created by — given by the Creator. That’s what our Declaration of Independence says.

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Q. I do not have two questions, only a two-part question, if I may. (Laughter.)

ARI FLEISCHER: You can stand at this podium if you keep up language like that. (Laughter.)

Q. I could never fill those shoes, Ari. (Laughter.)

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Q. In the realm of national human interest –

Q. Uh-oh.

Q. — I’m wondering if you are aware of the web site that has been set up in your honor, with an excellent photograph –

ARI FLEISCHER: Les, I remind you that sometimes these briefings are televised.

Q. — no, no, no — eighteen women who note that they “adore White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer.” And their web site, of which I have evidence here in my hand, is labeled, and I quote, “Fleischer’s Floozies.” My question is, surely you would not be so unchivalrous as to dismiss these adoring ladies with either a “no comment” or an evasion, would you, Ari?

MR. FLEISCHER: All I can tell you, Les, is if it’s a web site for 18 women, you should not be on it. (Laughter.)

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