In the midst of the "honeymoon" between Congress and President Bush, an ongoing debate has risen to full crescendo -- whether the nation's need for independent media criticism is endangered by a new breed of journalists called the "Washington Insiders."

Insiders, those publicists and journalists who cross the line between participant in and observer of our nation's government, count among their ranks some famous and respectable professionals: William Safire and Diane Sawyer both served as wordsmiths for Richard Nixon, Pierre Salinger (Kennedy), Jeanne Kirpatrick (ambassador to the U.N.) and Charles Krauthammer (Mondale), to name a few.

I count myself as one of the "Insiders." A journalist by schooling and experience, I now am serving an internship with the press department of Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont.

Why did I cross that delicate line, why do I choose to use the revolving door between government and journalism?

Quite simply, I want the inside perspective my political science classes have not given me. I intend to become a journalist with a stereoscopic perspective, a critical perspective and an understanding perspective.

"One of the great failures of modern American political journalism has been the lack of sophistication on the part of the reporter of what really goes on inside the bureaucracy," declares Charles Peters, editor of the Washington Monthly, in a January article in the Washington Post.

And in a New York Times column, Safire self-servingly admits that a place does exist in journalism for the Sawyers and Salingers who bring a special understanding to the coverage of government.

However, the revolving door sometimes spins the other way. Take David Beckwith, who just left Time's Washington bureau to become Vice President Dan Quayle's press secretary. My supervisor in Baucus's office worked professionally in television before joining the Senator's staff.

The alternative to a Washington insider going from press to government would be press spokespersons who never have been active journalists and may not be sensitive to dealing with journalists, hence providing a great disservice to government.

Enter David Broder, the Washington Post's national political correspondent and a respected political journalist.

In a speech to the National Press Club, Broder blasted those "androgynous" Washington Insiders: "The people know what to do with politicians who displease them: they always can vote them out of office. They have no such recourse against us in the press. And if they see us as part of a power-wielding clique of Insiders, they're going to be resentful as hell that they have no way to call us to account."

Point well taken. Journalists do enjoy a privilege beyond the reach of the checks and balances of our Constitution. Journalists work in private businesses, performing an important public function -- a function our Founders thought an intrinsic check on government. When the line between journalists and government employees is blurred, our nation's freedom is jeopardized.

Purists such as Broder do have their place in journalism, as do those who have traveled through the revolving door from politics to journalism or vice versa. The blurring, and the danger, occurs when Insiders travel through the door numerous times in their careers.

The distinction among the frequent travelers is between objective reporters and columnists.

With commentators and opinion writers, biases are their lifeblood. But convictions, loyalties and ideas developed in long-term government service are very hard to weed out of hard news.

Granted, even the most objective reporters are not completely objective -- they decide what is and what is not news, what are pertinent and what are not pertinent facts.

But political biases should not enter into reporting, and those who leap across the line repeatedly and rapidly run the risk of letting political biases seep in unknowingly.

Service in government for short periods of time is acceptable, in my opinion, and preferable. There is a time for purists and a time for people with an "Insider" perspective.

But crossing the line too many times and blurring the distinction between journalist or politician is only suitable for columnists, not for the most valuable check on our government --journalists.