Over at the Examiner, Jeff Dufour and I crunched the numbers and determined that reporters in the White House are back to Scott McClellan-like levels of laughter under Dana Perino (this, after Tony Snow made instances of laughter amongst the press corps increase by 330%, compared to McClellan).

Of course, there's more to the story:

Perino may be receiving less laughter from the press corps for a number of reasons. First, attention has turned away from the presidency during Bush's final months in office and many of the briefing room's regular characters are out on the campaign trail. Second, Perino's briefings are far shorter than Snow's; Perino's briefings during her first four months averaged 22 minutes, while Snow's averaged 35. And finally -- as Knox puts it -- "I really appreciate Dana's sense of humor, but I'm not sure it lends itself to a lot of people joining in." Knox calls Perino's comedic style "dry and wry."

Read the full thing here.