Real life Press Secretary Tony Snow does the same job as The West Wing's C.J. Cregg, as shown in Figure A, before she took over as Chief of Staff for Leo in the sixth season.

FIGURE A

Get to know Press Secretary Tony Snow. Click picture for a larger image.

The surprisingly hot, real life Deputy Press Secretary Dana Perino does the same job as Annabeth Schott (I didn't know her last name either), played by Kristin Chenoweth, as shown in Figure B.

FIGURE B

Dana Perino is the Deputy Press Secretary. Click picture for a larger image.

The undeniably "or not hot" Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, shown in Figure C, is an amalgam of Josh Lyman (before he went off and tried to run a comedy show), Sam Seaborn, and Toby Zieglar in his lucid years.

FIGURE C

You gotta love both Karl and Josh. Click picture for a larger image.

By the way, if you pray to a god, I've got to ask you to do us all a favor and pray to keep Karl from ever dancing, ever, ever again. I will also get down on my knees, if necessary. Karl dancing is an image that I'm positive will show up at the least opportune time in someone's nightmare.

For the record, Mr. Rove's on his second marriage and has been married for more than 20 years to the former Darby Tara Hickson. Mr. Rove's son, Andrew Madison Rove was born in 1987. This means that Andrew's in those precious school years. So, Karl, if you don't want your son's college age friends to think Andy's dad's a dork, do not do the dancing thing. Ever. I'm on your side, buddy. Seriously, don't do it.

Of course, this brings us back to the President, shown in Figure D. George W. Bush is no Martin Sheen. Likewise, Martin Sheen is no Josiah Bartlet, even though he plays him on TV. And to bring things full circle, Josiah Bartlet is no George W. Bush.

FIGURE D

Pictures of President Bush and "President Bartlet". Click picture for a larger image.

And, in a strange case of life riffing on art, Rudy Guliani is a freaky analog of Arnie Vinick, Barack Obama seems to be playing Jimmy Smits, and Hillary Clinton is doing her best to play Geena Davis in Commander in Chief. As a cautionary tale to Hillary, Commander in Chief lasted only barely into the first season, so read into that what you may.

Now that this is all clear as mud, you'll get a good understanding for what it feels like to sift through the transcripts of White House Press Briefings. After days of reading and highlighting Tony Snow's and Dana Perino's comments, reading every single transcript from mid-March to mid-May, I've started to feel like they're personally trying make me even crazier than I already am.

The mainstream media "reporters" who've been granted permission to sit in the White House Press Room are no help. They're asking questions like "That which you find when the forensics experts recover what it is that is lost, will you turn it over?", which makes you wonder if they've been blow-drying their hair just a few hours too long each day.

Seriously. That's a real quote.

Avoiding the political hatchet groups
As we continue our investigation, it's important to understand that there are a lot of sources we could pull information from. There are entire political organizations dedicated to digging up some dirt on the issue of these missing email messages, claiming scandal and worse. Many of those sources base their claims on reports and documents we've been unable to independently verify.