Acknowledging the omen of last Tuesday’s special election in Massachusetts, President Obama and his team are repositioning themselves publicly in order to showcase the president’s “feisty side,” White House senior adviser David Axelrod told Politico. He was quick to note, though, that there will be “no reinventing” despite Washington’s desire for “a shakeup or human sacrifice.” Call it what you will, but isn’t a new public strategy a form of reinvention?

Happy Anniversary Mr. President. Oy. In the words of Jake Tapper, “one of the bluest states in the nation just gave President Obama the WORST anniversary gift he could think of.” Or at least one of them. The day after recriminations and analysis has already started as everyone from the White House on down tries to figure out how this happened and what to do next. And not surprisingly, plenty of people are weighing in.

President Obama and the media is getting the New Yorker treatment this week. Obama is about to celebrate his first year as President. And boy has it been a year. That intensity that has surrounded his first year, while partly the result of events that followed Obama to the Oval Office, is also the result of media coverage under “pressure to entertain or perish.” Sometimes things get missed.

During a segment on Hardball yesterday Chris Matthews suddenly took what was a routine conversation with Politico’s Jonathan Martin about Dick Cheney’s recent criticisms of President Obama and turned it into a rather pointed criticism of Politico’s seemingly cozy relationship with Cheney.

WaPo reporter Anne Kornblut’s new book about women in politics hits shelves today. In an excerpt that captures the McCain campaign right before it made a left turn into Bizarro world senior McCain staffer Nicole Wallace recounts the first time she was contacted by a “real” reporter regarding the maternity of Trig Palin.

Last week, Mediaite asked you who was the top online editor of 2009. This time around, we’re recognizing sites which are too vast and ambitious in scope to describe in terms of the work of just one editor. You know the drill, loyal, smart, and attractive readers: below is a list of our nominees for the top site of 2009, including The Business Insider, Ars Technica, and Talking Points Memo. Vote for your favorite, or leave any deserving candidates you think we left out in the comments:

The biggest question to come from Thursday’s thwarted terrorist attack is how did someone on a watch list manage to get on a plane? This explanation from a senior administration official, via Politico, may go some ways to answering that question: There’s a lot of bureaucracy involved.

This is one of those stories you have to read twice because it’s almost too ridiculous to believe. Apparently, whilst vacationing with her family in Hawaii this week Sarah Palin, having no other head accessories at her disposal, opted to wear what is now a year-old John McCain campaign visor to the beach. Except in order to remain “incognito” she blacked out McCain’s name with marker. No really.

President Obama sometimes doesn’t have a lot of luck when it comes to timing. Once again a major Obama initiative (China) has been seemingly trumped by spectacle (Palin). Moreover, the White House apparently feels that the coverage they did get Stateside was ‘asinine.’

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.

The smartest thing I read last night on Twitter was by Dan Kennedy. He wrote this: Does anyone really believe the nonsense that any election is a referendum on Obama? Here’s the referendum on Obama: 11/6/2012. It’s an easy headline, I know, and so tempting on this, the one-year anniversary of Obama’s history-making hope-bringing win [...]

Yes, the newspaper industry, as we are all far too familiar, is in critical health. And maybe people are less interested in baseball, for whatever reason ($10 hot chocolate at Yankee Stadium may have something to do with that). Or maybe the country has just discovered a new national pastime. Namely, politics.

The GOP has had a bumpy ride as it’s tried to expand into social media. Exhibit A: RNC Chairman Michael Steele‘s much-ridiculed GOP.com blog, formerly titled “What Up?” Exhibit B: User-submitted racist photos staying on the GOP.com Facebook page for more than a week. Can the new Blackberry app “WhipCast,” courtesy of the Office of the Republican Whip, help reverse the curse?

Meme alert! Barack Obama’s fondness for golf is not a secret. This past weekend, however, Obama’s favorite pastime got some extra, significantly placed, mentions. Get ready for the President’s golf game to take the cablers by storm. Let’s take a look at the signs.

Whether the White House will be successful in their quest to delegitimize Fox News remains unclear. One already gets the sense that there is a backlash in the works about the administration’s blanket dismissal of Fox as a news organization — shows at 5 and 9pm do not an entire network make. However, perhaps Obama is just taking advantage of where the wind is blowing.

Looks like the Obama administration is serious about dealing with Fox News. Politico reported yesterday that during President Obama’s visit to the UN two weeks ago senior adviser David Axelrod met privately with Fox News head Roger Ailes…for coffee. Details are sketchy but perhaps they should have considered something stronger.

Lately, Gawker has been working overtime lecturing other media outlets about their ethics, even casting a jaundiced eye in our direction. They also ran 2 pieces attacking, alternately, Politico’s Mike Allen and the White House press corps for attending an off-the-record 4th of July event at the White House. As it turns out, Gawker’s outrage [...]

The only disclosure in Politico’s glowing piece about Allbritton’s generosity, which mentions the company is also Politico’s owner comes all the way down in the 10th graf. It’s something that probably should have been made clear at the outset. Maybe we’re just being sensitive. Or maybe we’re not. You decide.