In the weekend stories about the new Bob Woodward book, the conventional wisdom was that Woodward's first two Bush books were too supportive and sympathetic to the Bush White House, and now he's finally displaying some independence. But left out of that spin is Woodward's support and sympathy for the Clintons during their time in the White House. Revisit a few Brent Bozell columns for a reality check.

In 1994, Bozell wrote a column cheekily titled: "Woodward and Bernstein: Whitewater Wimps." Oh, how the scourges of Watergate went soft. Brent was especially flabbergasted by Woodward claiming Hillary was not a crook because the statute of limitations expired:

Even worse, a week later, Woodward presented this delicious lawyer's defense of the First Lady's cattle killing: "Would it be possible that there's a crime involved in the $100,000 in the futures market? This was what, 15 years ago, so the statute of limitations automatically means it's not a crime." Somewhere in New Jersey, Nixon is giggling.

Newly minted Newsweek editor Jon Meacham is promoting liberal former Sen. John Danforth again in a Sunday book review in The Washington Post. He's also praising  a new book called The Politics of Jesus by Obery Hendricks Jr. (The subtitle's all about Jesus as a political revolutionary.) Like many other liberal journalists, Meacham is desperately seeking someone to convince traditionally religious Americans that they shouldn't be giving their votes to conservatives. So they cheer a whole series of "intellectually stimulating" books that lamely attempt to recruit traditionalist Christians and Jews to vote for the loosey-goosey libertine party:

Hendricks's Christian manifesto for a politically liberal vision of America and of the world arrives at an especially rich moment in the long-running debate over the role of religion in the nation's public life. After roughly three decades of largely ceding the language of faith to political conservatives, liberals are mounting an aggressive and often intellectually stimulating counterattack.

As the Virginia senate race continues to degenerate into a media cesspool of preposterous racial accusations, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann's "Countdown" took things further downward Friday by deliberately editing a report on the latest Democratic activist accusing Republican George Allen of being a racist:

On Friday, "Countdown" reported on the latest allegations against George Allen. We noted that they did so by rerunning a report that aired Thursday on Hardball. David Shuster interviewed a woman who said she heard Allen using racial slurs.

But as we revealed exclusively on Olbermann Watch, the Countdown version differed from the original "Hardball" broadcast in one significant respect. Snipped from the taped piece were a series of questions that revealed the political affiliation of accuser Pat Waring.

Read the rest of the story over at Olbermann Watch.

Forget about the concept of journalists sticking together to protect one of their own, for on Sunday, Chris Matthews showed that when it comes to members of his profession, he’s a Democrat first, and folks in his field that don’t throw softball questions to and fawn over the same politicians he does aren’t deserving of his respect or his support (video link and transcript follow).

Such was the case on “The Chris Matthews Show” when the host closed his Sunday program praising former president Bill Clinton for his disgraceful behavior during his now infamous interview with Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday.”

Matthews’ extraordinarily hypocritical position: “[T]he biggest mistake that Mike Dukakis made in fighting the first President Bush in 1988 was believing that voters out in the country wouldn’t be swayed by all the Willie Horton stuff. The biggest mistake the John Kerry campaign made was not blasting the Swift boaters out of the water.”

Somehow, in Matthews' view, this explains the former president's behavior:

To save you the trouble, let me sum up Joan Vennochi's Boston Globe column of today, Carnage on the streets falling on deaf ears:

• Violent crime is increasing.
• It's Bush's fault because he's not sending enough money to local governments.
• He doesn't care about the uptick because the victims tend to be young black men.
• Oh, and to heck with the Constitution.

There. That wraps it up nicely.

My favorite bit is Venocchi's approving citation of L.A. police chief William Bratton:

``The federal government has stepped back significantly from dealing with the issue of local crime. This administration in Washington clearly feels that local crime is an issue for local towns and municipalities."

The Sunday Times has gotten copies of videos of Osama bin Laden and high-ranking members of al Qaeda in Afghanistan training camps back in the year 2000 (hat tip to Drudge):

It is the first time that a videotape has appeared of Mohammed Atta — who flew an American Airlines plane into the north tower of the World Trade Center — at a training camp in Afghanistan. It fills in a significant gap in the timing of the build-up to the attacks on the United States.

Dates on the tape show Atta was filmed on January 18, 2000, together with Ziad Jarrah, the pilot of United Airlines flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania after the passengers apparently stormed the flight deck.

Being a regular Fox News Watch viewer, there was nothing surprising, tuning into last evening's discussion of the Clinton-Chris Wallace dust-up, in hearing lefty panelist Neal Gabler take his employer and colleagues to task.

Among his moves, Gabler:

• Claimed "this network's reputation [presumably as right-leaning] precedes it."
• Asserted that Chris Wallace "did not frame the question properly. He asked 'why didn't you do more?' Which is like asking 'will you stop beating your wife?'"
• Defended Wallace only at the expense of other Fox colleagues: "He is not a Hannity, he's not an O'Reilly he's not a Brit Hume, Cavuto, Gibson." Hume of course is not merely an on-air personality but also the powerful FNC managing editor.
• Spurned host Eric Burns' entreaty to add someone from another network to his list of partisan TV personalities.

Later, amiable liberal Jane Hall chimed in - after smilingly mentioning that she was glad she had recently re-signed with FNC [and thus presumably was not vulerable to recriminations]. Claimed Jane: "this network's commentary beat up on him, beat up on Clinton, and did not beat up on Bush."

How many more people does Nancy Grace have to be connected to their death before CNN pulls her off the air? Nancy has been linked to the deaths of Melinda Duckett and Ricci who was also proven innocent after the facts were finally revealed. How many more non-convicted people have to die before CNN makes a change, and submits for the prosecution of Nancy Grace as a contributing factor to many people's death? Even the run-a-way bride considered suicide after learning how the media (Nancy Grace) portrayed her. The list of potential victims of Nancy Grace is a list as long as Nancy has been on the airways. Coincidence? I think not. Just a question...........

Tonight's 60 Minutes will feature Mike Wallace's interview with Bob Woodward about Woodward's new book, State of Denial, full of charges of Bush administration misdeeds. The last time the duo got together -- in 2004 when 60 Minutes similarly promoted a Woodward book, Plan of Attack -- Wallace ridiculed President Bush and Woodward played along. The MRC's CyberAlert recounted how on the April 18, 2004 edition of 60 Minutes, Wallace mocked President’s Bush’s smarts and belief in freeing people from oppression.

Wallace demanded: “Who gave George Bush the duty to free people around the world?” Wallace also jeeringly proposed: “The President of the United States, without a great deal of background in foreign policy, makes up his mind and believes he was sent by somebody to free the people -- not just in Iraq, but around the world?” Woodward shared Wallace’s concern: “It is far-reaching, and ambitious, and I think will cause many people to tremble.” Having established Bush’s irrationality, Wallace moved on to wondering “how deep a man is President George W. Bush?” Woodward contended: “He is not an intellectual. He is not what I guess would be called a deep thinker.”