Gaggle is a daily comic strip about the Washington press corps and Larry the press secretary. Larry deals with the shenanigans of reporters who couldn't imagine anyone voting for a Republican.

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Former chairman of the Federal Reserve Paul Volcker released a list today of 2,200 companies that apparently bribed Saddam Hussein for access to contracts related to the United Nations oil-for-food program. Topping the list were such household names as Germany’s Siemens Corporation, Germany’s Daimler Chrysler, and Sweden’s Volvo. Yet, Richard Roth, reporting on CNN’s “Lou Dobbs Tonight,” began his piece on this story by focusing on Oscar Wyatt, Jr., an oil trader from Texas:

“More than 2,000 companies were accused of doing illegal business with Saddam Hussein feasting on the oil-for-food program. One prominent American businessman was Texas oil trader Oscar Wyatt, Jr., who in a case of bad timing for him, was also arraigned last week in federal court charged by the government with paying millions of dollars of kickbacks to win oil contracts with Iraq.”

Unlike ABC and CBS, on Thursday night, NBC informed viewers of a report on the United Nations Oil-for-Food scandal, as NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams stated that "2,000 companies paid nearly $2 billion in kickbacks directly to Saddam Hussein" and that "the country with the most companies involved in this was Russia, followed by France." A complete transcript of the story from the October 27 NBC Nightly News follows:

Much to Senator Chris Dodd's consternation on Thursday's Larry King Live on CNN, Washington Post Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward, of Watergate fame, pointed out a fact rarely mentioned by the mainstream media -- that “most of the analysts at the CIA said that [Joseph] Wilson's findings, when he went to Niger, supported the conclusion that there was some deal with Iraq” for uranium. When Dodd started to counter Woodward, Woodward asserted that “Democrats and the Republicans all signed that report. That is a fact.” Woodward revealed that he had the report “in his pocket”and when King asked why, Woodward answered: "Yes I do because I knew I might be challenged." When King went to an ad break two minutes later, the camera pulled back to show everyone at the table. Woodward then slid forward across the table to Dodd what looked like a few 8-and-half-by-11 sheets of paper with a post-it on top. Dodd ignored it, but in the second before CNN went to black, Senator Lindsey Graham, sitting beside Dodd, picked them up.

The still shot is from a fraction of a second after the papers are released from Woodward's hand. Video excerpt of this event: Real or Windows Media. Dodd says something as he looks toward Woodward. If you can read lips... (Transcript of the earlier exchange follows.)

Tim Russert of “Meet the Press” was on the "NBC Nightly News” this evening talking about Harriet Miers. He stated that the announcement of her resignation this morning is part of a new strategy by President Bush to “get control of his second term that is spiraling out of control.” In addition, according to Russert, Republicans are calling this "The week from hell.”

In Russert’s view, Republicans weren’t interested in seeing what would happen on November 7 when the confirmation hearings were scheduled to begin, and instead advised the president to “lance it now.”

Finally, Russert said that if indictments do indeed come tomorrow from Patrick Fitzgerald, "[Republicans] hope there are plea bargains and this issue is quickly resolved and settled to spare the president’s second term."

What follows is a full transcript of this report, and a video link.

People who know Harriet Miers in Dallas, Lee Cowan reported on Thursday's CBS Evening News, think she “deserved better than this" and he quickly moved to highlight those mad at conservatives, or as one cab driver charged, the “far right.” Cowan relayed that “at a Dallas diner this morning, her withdrawal served up a lot of disappointment” where patrons were upset “that conservatives, even here in her home state, weren't willing to give her a chance." Cowan went outside and leaned into a taxi to ask the driver: "What happened?” The cabbie replied: "I think the far right, they had been itching for a big battle for years." Cowan did pass along a defense of conservatives: "Dallas talk show host Mark Davis though says local conservatives are actually just trying to watch out for the President's legacy."

Over on ABC's World News Tonight, following a lead story from Terry Moran, Linda Douglass opened a piece: "Democrats were quick to blame Miers' collapse on conservative activists, who demanded loudly that the President dump her." After a clip of Senator Harry Reid scolding the “the radical right wing of the Republican Party,” Douglass picked up on how Senator Arlen Specter "said the groups drowned her and the President out." Following bites from Senator Sam Brownback and Rush Limbaugh, she returned to the anti-conservative prism from which she began, setting up a slam from Senator Ted Kennedy by relating how Democrats say "if he chooses an ideological conservative, he will appear to be the tool of outside groups," and she concluded with how “Senator [Lindsey] Graham is urging the President to appoint someone who, in his words, 'won't blow this place up'” -- meaning a non-conservative. Pivoting from Douglass, anchor Bob Woodruff turned to George Stephanopoulos and inquired: “Does he [Bush] have to nominate a conservative to satisfy the base of his party or a moderate who would be acceptable enough to Democrats to avoid a long and prolonged fight?” Stephanopoulos listed some potential nominees before warning: “Both Priscilla Owen and Michael Luttig fall into that category that Lindsey Graham talked about. They would blow the place up." (Transcripts follow.)

There is a reason why movie sequels usually bomb. Story line is old, too predictable, been there done that,....well it appears that book sequels can also be bombs, and I can't think of a better illustration than Al Franken's new book, The Truth With Jokes.

Alan Skorski who has a book due out in November, an expose on Franken, titled, Pants on Fire: How Al Franken Lies, Smears, and Deceives, according to his site, www.alanskorski.com, has written a brief review on his blog on Franken's latest screed.

It seems that Franken really shot his load on his first book and has to keep reminding his readers of his last book, Lies and the Lying Liars, as if he's trying to increase his Amazon rating even on his old stuff.

When Franken was out promoting his last book, he actually used material from his book in his interviews. For anybody who watched him with Matt Lauer or Jon Stewart, he talked about the "impending execution of Rove and Libby." A controversy so recent, that it can't possibly be in his book.

I have several requirements for supporting Supreme Court nominees,
among them being that Chucky Schumer and Harry Reid must hate them.
Let's face it, if these two clowns support you, you have about as good
a chance of being a rational human being as Al Gore has of developing a
personality. With that in mind, it should not be hard to understand why
I practically jumped for joy
when I heard that Harriet Miers was withdrawing her nomination to
the high court. Even though most of my Republican friends kept telling
me that I needed to give her a chance, I just couldn't get past the
fact
that two of the most insanely liberal members of the U.S. Senate
actually liked her.

Predictably, every radical left-winger in the country is now saying
that President Bush needs to choose a "moderate" replacement nominee,
which proves once again how completely out of touch with reality these
people really are. In the first place, there's no such thing as a
moderate judge, there's only originalists and activists. Secondly,
whenever a liberal says they think we need more moderates anywhere,
what they are really saying is we need more liberals who call
themselves moderates.

I have several requirements for supporting Supreme Court nominees,
among them being that Chucky Schumer and Harry Reid must hate them.
Let's face it, if these two clowns support you, you have about as good
a chance of being a rational human being as Al Gore has of developing a
personality. With that in mind, it should not be hard to understand why
I practically jumped for joy
when I heard that Harriet Miers was withdrawing her nomination to
the high court. Even though most of my Republican friends kept telling
me that I needed to give her a chance, I just couldn't get past the
fact
that two of the most insanely liberal members of the U.S. Senate
actually liked her.

Predictably, every radical left-winger in the country is now saying
that President Bush needs to choose a "moderate" replacement nominee,
which proves once again how completely out of touch with reality these
people really are. In the first place, there's no such thing as a
moderate judge, there's only originalists and activists. Secondly,
whenever a liberal says they think we need more moderates anywhere,
what they are really saying is we need more liberals who call
themselves moderates.

In his blog post today, MSNBC host Keith Olbermann not only takes credit for a World Series prediction he didn't make, but also links the Chicago White Sox' championship to...Plamegate.

(At this writing, the post in question is misdated October 24, but it's at the top of the page nonetheless.)

In today's entry, Olbermann writes, "(White Sox sweep - told you so - more later)." But that "told you so" is an overstatement. Last Thursday, two days before the Series began, he wrote only that there was an "excellent chance" that the White Sox "could" sweep the Houston Astros. In any context that pertains here -- Las Vegas, for example -- Olbermann's "prediction" clearly is not equivalent to declaring (or betting), "White Sox in four."

On to promote an annual conference on women's issues in California former NBC reporter and the current First Lady of California, Maria Shriver, stressed her desire to make sure it wasn't partisan because "that's not what I'm about." Anyone who's followed Shriver's career at NBC can't help but guffaw at that one. The following is an exchange between Matt Lauer and Maria Shriver that took place at 8:39am on this morning's Today show:

Matt Lauer: "I know this is the nineteenth of these types of conferences to be held and in the past there's been sometimes a political element to this and, and you felt very strongly that you wanted to get rid of that in terms of this conference."

Maria Shriver: "Well I wanted this conference when I took it over to be bipartisan. I wanted it to be a conference with a conscience. I wanted it to be a green conference and I wanted it to be a conference that was non-partisan. As we all know I'm in a bipartisan marriage so either, neither party can really claim me and I kind of see myself as a First Lady of all people. I really think that there are so many issues that unite us and that's what I concentrate on. I go out and talk about the issues where we have common ground. I talk about solutions, I try to talk about other people who are out talking about solutions and I think that the people whether they're Democrats, Republicans, Greens, declined to state, they're really interested in people like Sister Jennie who are out there doing things in the community, that are doing positive things. They're interested in solutions to all of these issues. They're not interested in partisan, polarizing dialogue and that's not what I'm about, never have been."

CBS News legal analyst, Andrew Cohen, today relays a conspiracy theory some have cooked up regarding the Miers nomination: Miers was never intended to sit on the Court, but rather to be a "sacrificial lamb" whose botched nomination would make it harder for liberals to sink her more conservative replacement.

Cohen himself finds the notion "only mildly paranoid when you think about it," adding:

Can this be? Why not. Anyone who has read those suck-up notes that Miers wrote to President Bush (they’ve been published and posted everywhere, in case you are wondering) wouldn’t have too hard a time believing that she would be wiling to sacrifice her own professional reputation for all eternity to further the political goals of the man to whom she has long hitched her star.

Anna Quindlen hasn't been a New York Times columnist for more than a decade, but she'd still fit in quite well on her old paper's op-ed page. In her opinion piece for the October 31 Newsweek, Quindlen takes up the inclination to psychoanalyze President Bush from one current Times columnist, Maureen Dowd, and the Iraq-is-Vietnam argument from another, Frank Rich.

Early in the column, Quindlen asserts that the Bush administration's Iraq policy

became a moving target. First there were weapons of mass destruction that were not there and direct links to the terrorists who attacked on September 11 that didn't exist. The removal of Saddam Hussein was given as the greatest good; it has been done. Then it became the amorphous goal of bringing freedom to the Iraqi people, as though liberty were flowers and we were FTD. The elections, the constitution, the rubble, the dead.

New York Times TV critic Alessandra Stanley celebrates a self-congratulatory documentary about Hurricane Katrina that features NBC anchor Brian Williams.

The liberal Stanley particularly appreciates "In His Own Words: Brian Williams on Hurricane Katrina" (airing tonight on the Sundance Channel) for showing Bush and the federal government in a poor light:

"It's never too soon to replay the blame game. 'In His Own Words: Brian Williams on Hurricane Katrina' on the Sundance Channel serves as a study aid for those who wish to re-examine the government's neglect of the poorest victims of that terrible storm. News programs may have moved on to the damage wrought by Hurricane Wilma, but the devastation along the Gulf Coast was a seminal moment in President Bush's faltering second term."

Professor Cori Dauber interrupts the hagiography to point out that anchor Williams has apparently "forgotten his pledge to 'commute' to the Gulf in order to ensure he stayed completely on top of the story."

For more on the Times' liberal bias, visit TimesWatch.

The Miers withdrawal having not yet broken and indictments in the Plame investigation still uncertain, the Early Show focused primarily on Hurricane Wilma in their first half hour's coverage. They seem to have gone for the "government response is painfully slow while people suffer" angle, casting doubt on FEMA and state disaster relief agencies as millions are still without power and face long lines for gas, food, and water.

First co-anchor Rene Syler led off at 7:05 EDT, tossing to Trish Regan live from Miami:

"President Bush visits southern Florida today, where there is growing frustration over relief efforts in the wake of Hurricane Wilma. There are shortages of food and fuel, and some four million people remain without power. CBS News correspondent Trish Regan is live in Miami with more on this. Trish, good morning."

Regan opened: "Good morning, Rene. Well, people are growing increasingly frustrated, they're waiting sometimes five hours in line for basic things like food, water, and ice. I can tell you this morning, already, the gas lines have started. The biggest issue here for people is their lack of power."

In wake of the Harriet Miers withdrawal of her nomination to the US Supreme Court, the Associated Press wasted little time in releasing an article trashing conservatives. Terrence Hunt found plenty of people to quote in regards to how "extreme" the Republican party is, but could find no one with any reasonable counter-arguments.

He quotes Democrats as saying: Bush has bowed to the "radical right wing of the Republican Party."

He found Ted Kennedy: "The president has an opportunity now to unite the country. In appointing the next nominee, he must listen to all Americans, not just the far right."

He found Democratic Leader Harry Reid: "The radical right wing of the Republican Party killed the Harriet Miers nomination. They want a nominee with a proven record of supporting their skewed goals."

At 7:17am, in promoting an Anne Thompson piece on how "Big Oil" is enjoying record profits Couric, used the "we" word.

Katie Couric: "They say one man's pain is another man's pleasure. And it turns out the pain we all shared at the gas pump this summer brought an awful lot of pleasure in the form of big profits to the nation's oil companies.

Newsbusters fans will remember Couric tried this line before on August 15th when she declared: "I had to take out a loan to fill up my minivan. It’s crazy.”

On CNN’s American Morning, legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin was quick to attach the “very conservative” label to possible Supreme Court nominees Priscilla Owen, Janice Rogers Brown and Michael Luttig. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, however, Toobin deems to be “a lot more politically appealing.”

At 9:55 am, Toobin did not merely state that Owen was a conservative judge on the Texas state supreme court.

In a report last night on CNN’s “Newsnight,” David Ensor continually referred to CIA employee Valerie Plame as being “undercover.” In fact, the entire report was about the dire consequences to the agency as a whole as a result of such an "outing," as well as to Plame:

“Forty-two-year-old Valerie Plame Wilson, whose husband referred to her as 'Jane Bond,' is clearly now the most famous female spy in America. Exposing her as a CIA undercover officer did damage to U.S. intelligence, U.S. officials say. They refuse to be more specific.”

Unfortunately, nowhere in the report did Ensor relay to the viewer that Plame has not been undercover since 1997, and, instead, has been working for the CIA on American soil ever since. In fact, as reported by USA Today back in July 2004: