One of the most prolific tweeters that we follow is Major Garrett. The brand new Chief White House Correspondent for CBS/Columnist for National Journal takes his Twitter feed to many different places. We began to worry about Garrett since he hadn’t tweeted since November 22. Just as we were thinking of sending out the search dogs, he re-emerged Tuesday morning with the following tweet.

Same Twitterer, same avatar (that will never change) but a new handle. Welcome to @majorcbs. As always, thanks for following.

— Major Garrett(@MajorCBS) December 4, 2012

He lives! And he’s changed his name! While he will still write a column for National Journal, his main gig will be with CBS. When Garrett covered the White House for Fox News, he tweeted as “@MajoratWH.” When he jumped to National Journal, he switched to “@MajoratNJ.” At the time, followers seemed to wait with baited breath for what the new handle would be. When we got the news about his moving to CBS, we figured it was only a matter of time.

We reached out to Garrett about the name change… Read more

I’ll say this about this piece by National Journal’s Ron Fournier: It was honest. The lengthy story, which chronicled the relationship he’s had with his son is undoubtedly a tough, emotional read. Fournier readily admits he hasn’t been a great father. I cringed when I read this part about Fournier agreeing to not force his child to play sports anymore. His son, Tyler, hated sports. But, Fournier made him participate for YEARS.

“By the time he reached his teens, he could sense that something was amiss. After a dozen years of butting heads about sports, which he had come to hate, Tyler and I struck a deal. He could give up sports if he promised to exercise three days a week and join an extracurricular club in school. We were sitting on the sofa in the family room when he grabbed my hand and shook it. ‘You got a deal,’ Tyler said. Then he grew quiet. I asked what was wrong. ‘I was afraid you wouldn’t like me as much if I stopped playing sports.’”

While it’s a fascinating read, it does come across as a peek inside the therapy sessions that Fournier’s kid will be having in a matter of years. It’s all so….  public. Sometimes, the best writing is the most difficult to read. In this case, I just came away hoping that Fournier had learned from his past mistakes.

The story made the rounds throughout the day on Friday, Twitter reacted, with many effusively praising Fournier… Read more

Major Garrett will be returning to TV and the White House. Effective November 26, Garrett will take over as White House Correspondent for CBS News. CBS is a television partner of National Journal, where Garrett currently serves as White House Correspondent for the publication. He will continue to write a weekly column for them.

Garrett replaces Norah O’Donnell, who moved on to be the host of “CBS This Morning.”

Ron Fournier, Editor-in-Chief of the National Journal sent this email to colleagues.. Read more

On Thursday National Journal‘s George Condon took issue with our writeup of Bloomberg‘s Hans Nichols shouting out a question out of turn at the end of the White House presser with President Obama earlier in the week. We said Hans pulled a “Neil Munro,” as in the heckler who interrupted Obama in the Rose Garden in June, knowing full well he was asking a question out of the realm of Wednesday’s protocol. Condon, among others such as NYT‘s Peter Baker, argued Hans was well within his grounds to shout-out a question at the close of the presser. They asserted that it’s tradition for reporters to push and try to extend a press conference longer than the President and his aides may allow.

Fair enough. But Munro, who was largely shunned and criticized by colleagues after his incident, had another take on the matter… Read more

On Halloween, fast food chain White Castle tweeted out the question, “What are you dressed as?” First of all, maybe we should make a new rule, if you’re old enough to have a Twitter account, you’re too old to dress up for Halloween.

In any event, one person who responded was National Journal’s Editor-in-Chief Ron Fournier. He replied, “True story: Met my wife while dressed as @whitecastle hamburger in ’83. She was (and is) an angel.”

Awwww. While it’s a sweet story, I’d have a really hard time equating the love of my life with tiny, steamed hamburgers. We spoke with Fournier about that fateful night… Read more

Like a door knob, it seems everybody’s getting a turn with Richard E. Cohen. In a two-year span the veteran journo will have been under the employ of  three different Capitol Hill publications. According to an internal memo, the latest rag that Cohen will add to his roster is CQ, where he has been hired to cover House leadership.  His new gig follows a year at Politico and many years at National Journal.

No word yet on when Cohen will be hired by The Hill. Until then he’ll write for CQ’s real-time, daily and weekly publications, and for Politics in America. He begins next week.  Congrats to Rich!