One week ago President Bush welcomed 11 conservative commentators and pundits to the White House for a private chat, something he’s done regularly during his presidency. The friendly audience is often a who’s who of the right, and based on the list that Jon Ward of the Washington Times obtained, that was again the case for last Wednesday’s meeting.

Tony Blankley, The Washington Times
Lawrence Kudlow, CNBC
Kate O’Beirne, National Review
Michael Barone, U.S. News and World Report
William Kristol, The Weekly Standard
David Brooks, The New York Times
Mort Kondracke, Roll Call
Charles Krauthammer, syndicated
Kathryn Lopez, National Review
Kim Strassel, The Wall Street Journal
Ron Kessler, author

The meetings are a nice gesture, but I couldn’t help but notice a major void among the attendees. All of them come from established entities, meaning they either write or edit an established conservative publication or contribute to an established Washington-based publication. Get what I’m trying to say? There are no bloggers on the list. (Kathryn Lopez doesn’t fit my definition of “blogger” in this case because she’s the editor of National Review Online, the website of a 52-year-old magazine.)

It strikes me as odd that less than a week after Bush met with military bloggers, he wouldn’t extend the same invitation to some of the most popular right-of-center bloggers; folks like Glenn Reynolds, Michelle Malkin, Hugh Hewitt, Paul Mirengoff, Ed Morrissey and James Joyner come to mind). They arguably have just as much clout as some of the people who made the cut for last Wednesday’s meeting. But clout isn’t all that matters.

In fact, there’s much more that could be happening at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. A few suggestions would be 1) making bloggers a permanent addition to the press room (i.e. giving them a “hard pass”), 2) inviting bloggers for regular meetings with Bush, and 3) turning some of the great e-mail products I get into material for a White House blog.

Slowly but surely the White House is making progress. With two new people handling communications and online strategy (press secretary Dana Perino and Internet director Serenety Hanley), I hope we’ll continue to see advancements. There’s too much at stake not to adapt.