Inside the Beltway

Player again

Steve Smith, the former editor of U.S. News & World Report who came in from the cold to be a vice president (for communications) at Brookings Institution, is back in the business.

He was named yesterday as the chief of the Washington bureau of the Houston Chronicle.

One of his claims to fame is that he has been a senior editor of all three major newsmagazines — he was executive editor at Newsweek and editor of the Nation section at Time. He also has been the editor of National Journal, founding editor of Civilization magazine and senior editor of Horizon magazine.

But he’s a newspaperman at heart, having worked on the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Boston Globe and the Albany Times-Union.

“I’m delighted to be back in the game,” he says. (This is the way editors talk, saying it in ever fewer words.)

Northern exposure

Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin yesterday welcomed President Bush to Parliament Hill in Ottawa, where reporters — unlike in the White House — still must adhere to proper decorum.

“For all press (correspondents, crews and photographers) planning to attend the president’s joint press availability on Tuesday — jeans and T-shirts will not be permitted,” the White House warned members of its traveling press corps. “Gentlemen must wear jackets.”

Additional “Protocol Essentials” were provided by the White House protocol chief aboard Air Force One en route to Ottawa.

“[C]anadians have customs including firm handshakes for people they meet and customary hellos upon greeting, though the French speakers go with ‘Bonjour,’” said the White House pool report. “In Quebec, don’t give thumbs-down gesture, as it is ‘considered offensive’ …

“Canadian expression ‘eh’ — pronounced ‘AY’ — means ‘you know?’ or ‘isn’t it?’ but we may not encounter it since it is ‘used mostly in rural areas.’”

Good times

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