Mediaite has learned that Fox News White House correspondent Major Garrett is leaving the network effective September 3rd to return to his roots in print journalism. White House correspondents Wendell Goler and Mike Emanuel will assume joint coverage of the WH beat for Fox News. The highly respected White House reporter weathered numerous battles between FNC and the White House and maintained the highest standard of journalism during his tenure. Full press release after the jump.

President Obama, and the press corp. traveling with him, landed in China Sunday and are scheduled to depart Tuesday. The Chinese has strict Internet rules and many sites we take for granted here are banned there, for example, Twitter — something the President has apparently never used, but which the press corp traveling with him is desperate to access.

Here’s what working for an enormously popular (in terms of general good will, since Obama’s approval ratings have actually taken a hit of late) president gets you: a big target on your chest. Following the NYT‘s cool-ish profile of Rahm Emanuel, The Daily Beast’s Lee Siegel is turning a sharply critical eye on press secretary Robert Gibbs. Blame the messenger! He’s arrogant and thin-skinned. Or is that the press?

Last Thursday, you may recall, Fox News’ Major Garrett got into it with Press Secretary Robert Gibbs over Garrett’s questioning of White House email procedures. He asked Gibbs a question that there was only one way to answer, then attacked him for trying to answer it. On the air later, Garrett admitted there was a problem with his question. Is the White House overreacting to an overreaction?

The Vancouver Sun reports on an explosion of racially-charged slurs in the comments section of Free Republic, a popular conservative blog: “‘A typical street whore.’ ‘A bunch of ghetto thugs.’ ‘Ghetto street trash.’ ‘Wonder when she will get her first abortion.’ These are a small selection of some of the racially-charged comments posted to the conservative ‘Free Republic’ blog Thursday, aimed at U.S. President Barack Obama’s 11-year-old daughter Malia.”