So when gunshots were fired at about 11:30 a.m. outside the White House, few reporters were around to capture the event. One press aide says he thought the pop sound of the shots being fired was a car backfiring. He changed his mind when he looked out his window to see men in black toting submachine guns in combat position behind every tree. The reporters who were there went stampeding out the briefing room door. Others found out about the shooting from television, from a colleague or-worse-a boss.

It took only a few minutes for CNN’s John King to call the White House press office: he already had the name of the shooter. For most others, the scene was one of pandemonium and then a lot of waiting around for details. Stuck behind a police barricade at the Ellipse, the grassy circle south of the White House, reporters turned to each other for information. For levity, they turned to Austin-American Statesman correspondent Ken Herman, who has covered Bush for years and has already emerged as the jester in chief of the White House press corps. Given the theme of the week, Herman quipped: “Maybe the shooter’s from a disgruntled tax family.”

FRIEND OF W

When Marc Racicot informed George W. Bush that he didn’t want to be nominated for attorney general, Bush told his old buddy to “keep his powder dry.” Racicot, who has become expert at translating Bush after hanging around him for years, knew what that meant: the president still had plans for him. Now, the former governor of Montana is coming to Washington as a power player of the unofficial sort.

Racicot has signed on as a partner with Texas-based law firm Bracewell & Patterson, which represents several big energy companies. That immediately gives Racicot a voice on two contentious issues: energy and the environment. The FOW has already talked energy with Bush’s chief strategist Karl Rove, Commerce Secretary Don Evans and top domestic-policy counselor Josh Bolten.

Bracewell’s clients, naturally, are thrilled to have a counsel who has the president’s ear, but it is Racicot whose ear may get the bending as an honest sounding board for Bush. “I’m hoping that I’ll be helpful in some way,” Racicot says. He is too modest. Racicot has a lot of juice at this White House. After all, the amiable governor led the charge against the Florida “re-recount,” as the Bushies called it. Despite his characteristic low-key style, Racicot probably was the campaign’s most virulent spokesman about the perceived shenanigans in the stateside Republic of Chad.

His role this time will be much less public, but no less important to Bush personally. Racicot is part of a small cadre of people the president trusts completely and believes has no personal agenda. Bush has made it clear that he wants the eyes and ears of those outside the “bubble” to lend perspective. Another close friend, New York mogul Roland Betts, did just that during the campaign when Bush swung right in South Carolina after taking a beating from John McCain in New Hampshire.

For now, in fact, Racicot could prove more valuable to Bush as a friend than as a cabinet secretary. Turning down the attorney general job just made Bush respect Racicot more because, the president felt, he did the right thing. Beltway cynics didn’t buy Racicot’s explanation that family financial matters kept him from the AG job. Rumors (false) spread that the right wing had derailed Racicot’s appointment. But Racicot really did need to make some money. After decades in public office and with three kids in private school, Racicot had only a $1,000 (not tens of thousands) in the bank. Racicot jokes that when he volunteered to open his tax records and bank account to scrutiny as governor, “people thought that would be interesting… until they saw what was there.”

But his finances were no joking matter to his wife, Theresa. Racicot doesn’t own a home (he sold it to pay for his daughters’ schooling) and drives an old station wagon. He had to borrow a pickup to move his stuff out of the governor’s mansion recently. Now, Racicot will be pulling in a healthy six figures. He says he’ll shore up the family coffers for a couple of years, then he’s open to persuasion from the charmer in chief, who is likely to ask him one more time to lock and load.

PAYBACK TIME

Theodore Olson, whose legal prowess in Florida won him Bush’s admiration and not a few “thank yous” during the Inaugural, is a near shoe-in for the post of solicitor general. Even those who were rooting against him when he argued Bush’s case in front of the Supreme Court in December say he’s intellectually honest and even-keeled. His wife, Barbara-a conservative talk-show regular-elicits very different reactions. Especially from freshman Sen. Hillary Clinton. Barbara Olson is the author of “Hell to Pay,” an excruciating portrayal of Hillary, who is reportedly miffed that the Olsons will be a new “It” couple in Washington.

FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES

Nobody was more surprised to learn that it was Lynne Cheney who persuaded the vice president to hire Mary Matalin as a chief advisor than Matalin herself. “I didn’t know until I read it this morning,” Matalin said, referring to a profile of Lynne Cheney in the New York Times on Tuesday. The two women became friends during stints on CNN’s “Crossfire.” Lynne helped convince Matalin, who has two small children, that the veep’s office would be “family friendly.” Dick Cheney’s press secretary, Juleanna Glover, also has young children. And Lynne Cheney’s office is staffed with several mothers trying to balance careers and kids.