How deed poll could improve journalism here...

Below are the some of the new names to the Washington press pool:

• Chuck Todd (NBC)
• Jake Tapper (ABC)
• Chip Reid (CBS)
• Ed Henry (CNN)
• Bret Baier / Major Garrett (Fox)

These are striking, handsome-sounding names. You just know you’re getting fearless reporting from a Jake Tapper. And after a Major Garrett files copy you know he’s out saving cats in trees and helping old ladies across dangerous roads.

What do we have in our Stormont press pool? The best we got is Gareth ‘Flash’ Gordon. Instead of Chip Reid, we got Ken Reid. And surely a Noel McAdam delivers the papers, he doesn’t make them.

Guys, seriously. Staff at Bobballs urges political hacks everywhere to requisition some heroic names for 2009. Why not a Zac McAdam, or a Mark Zapper; or a Hancock Dempster?

Otherwise, keep up the good work lads!

PS. Sure there may be changes afoot in Beltway reporting, but nothing can replace the loss of this man. At Bobballs we called him TOTUS! That's right, 'Tim of the United States'. He was the only Tim that mattered. Godspeed TOTUS...