FRONT ROW: Thomas says the D.C. press corps is soft.

Sitting in the front row at White House press briefings, Thomas has seen it all. Last week, those who attended Planned Parenthood Southeastern Pennsylvania's annual spring confab at the College of Physicians got to hear her discuss the internal workings of the POTUS' press corps.

Fresh off her appearance in a joke White House press secretary audition tape by Stephen Colbert that was shown at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner, Thomas said in a private interview that "spin has become a way of life at the White House. Not enough politicians get pinned down."

"We're stenographers at the White House," says Thomas, who has a new book out next month called Watchdogs of Democracy? The Waning Washington Press Corps and How It Has Failed the Public (Scribner, $25). "Spin is the way of life. '9/11, Saddam Hussein. 9/11, Saddam Hussein, 9/11, Saddam Hussein.' We got that for two years. Is it any wonder that everyone in the military thought that Hussein had caused the terrorists acts? This is a very propagandist way of promoting a point of view."

Thomas said she thinks reporters were much more skeptical in previous eras.

"I thought we had learned a severe lesson during the Watergate scandal when we realized it took outside reporters to know what was going on in terms of abuse of government power," she said. "And we became much more skeptical and hard-driving and then we lost a lot of that after 9/11. I think the reporters were afraid of being called unpatriotic and un-American if they asked a lot of penetrating questions, [so they] gave the president a free ride."

On the run-up to the war, Thomas said, the press "really retreated and I think that was very bad for the country. I think if they had been much more skeptical, they might have asked the questions that may have kept us out of war. The press fell down on the job. It lost its one lesson, which was skepticism. Let's see the weapons of mass destruction. John F. Kennedy showed us the missiles in Cuba, and no such thing was ever done in the war against Iraq.

"We didn't ask the questions, we were cowed by 9/11 and we lost our nerve. But reporters are coming out of their coma now and finally asking the questions. Hurricane Katrina did it."

As for Congress, Thomas concluded, "They accepted everything. They even gave up their right to declare war, which is their sole constitutional right."

With a mostly female audience, Thomas said she felt that women had come a long way in many fields and women journalists shouldn't expect to be popular.

"If you want to be loved," Thomas said, "don't go into this business."

What some thought might be an exclusive party last Thursday at the Union League for Donald Trump's unveiling of the grand plans for Trump Tower Philadelphia was anything but. The ballroom was packed with the club-circuit crowd, politicians and curious developers, many of whom looked concerned that their own projects might pale in comparison to the Donald's. While the booze flowed and the sushi circulated, guests waited for something to happen.

After taking the stage with progeny Ivanka and Donald Jr. , Trump pushed his reality show more than his new building, although he did give some detail on the proposed 528-foot high, 45-story condominium edifice and presented a small model of the project. With a $700,000 starting price, a Trump Tower condo purchase includes putting greens, white-glove doormen, feng shui-designed reflective ponds and a 6,000-square-foot health club and spa along with an indoor/outdoor pool and a cosmetic enhancement center.

The downside is the location; Trump Tower Philadelphia is off the beaten path, near Spring Garden Street and Delaware Avenue. Whether Trump can sell all 276 condos remains to be seen. They're expected to be completed in 2008.