Get Down!
White House Correspondent Mark Knoller just alerted us to this little bit of history. Adjust your ring tones accordingly.
When during his daily briefing, spokesman Tony Snow heard a reporter's cell phone go off, he listened for a moment and then chided the reporter, Martha Raddatz of ABC News.
"Does Martha have a hip-hop ringtone?," he asked in mock disbelief.
"What's wrong with that?," one reporter shouted back.
"Doesn't everyone?," said another.
As reporters laughed at the embarassment of the straight-laced Raddatz, Snow offered a tacit endorsement of the ringtone selection.
"Play that funky music, white girl!" said Snow.
Never before have those words been uttered by a White House Press Secretary at an on-the-record, on-camera daily briefing.