Steven Spruiell of NRO Media Blog offered a few thoughts on Tony Snow's apology to David Gregory for suggesting a question about how Bush is a failure was partisan in character. (To me, it had a bit of a "sorry I said the sky is blue" logic to it.) I'm more in line with Steve's POV than Noel Sheppard's praise for Snow's decency:

Snow's smart enough to realize that the White House simply doesn't enjoy the kind of popularity it would need to survive a war with the beltway media right now, and the last thing he needs is the Milbanks of the world attacking his credibility on the eve of a major policy change in Iraq.

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich was Tim Russert’s "guest" on “Meet the Press” Sunday, and it’s safe to assume the eloquent Georgian would have preferred something more pleasant for Christmas like a root canal, a colonoscopy, or an income tax audit. In fact, Russert gave Gingrich a grilling that many murder suspects don’t receive from hostile police officers in an interrogation room.

With that as pretext, while you read some of Russert’s inquiries, just imagine how incredibly unlikely it is that any Democrat candidate for president will ever face the kinds of questions Gingrich did this fine day. For instance, can you in your wildest dreams envision Russert asking John Edwards or Hillary Clinton something like this:

Imagine for a moment you were ABC’s Chief Washington Correspondent, as well as a former member of the Clinton administration who was currently quite opposed to the Iraq war. Further assume that in the months leading up to the recent midterm elections, the Democrat Senate minority leader had been aggressively advocating immediate troop withdrawals from the region, a position you agreed with. Contrary to his previous view of this incursion, when you interviewed this Senator after the elections, he stated that he could actually support an increase in troops.

Given his expressed positions before the elections, and the fact that he was about to be sworn in as the new Senate majority leader, would you aggressively challenge this high-ranking official about his sudden change of heart, or give him a pass? Well, on Sunday’s “This Week”, America got its answer as another pre-election myth was retired, and unceremoniously put out to pasture (must-see video available here, relevant section at minute three, transcript follows).

Former CBS anchorman Dan Rather was Howard Kurtz’s guest on Sunday’s “Reliable Sources,” and the interview went in a lot of fascinating directions. One of the most telling parts was when Rather said Saddam Hussein’s contentions that Iraq didn’t possess weapons of mass destruction were clearly more accurate than those who suggested otherwise – certainly implying President Bush.

Early in the segment, Kurtz played a clip of a controversial 2003 interview that Rather did with Saddam Hussein wherein the now deposed despot claimed Iraq had no WMD. Kurtz asked Rather, “Does that answer seem different to you now than it might have seemed at the time when most people did believe that Saddam had WMD?”

Rather answered:

Why isn't Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs, who first broke the "fauxtography" scandal out of Lebanon, among Time's "digital democracy" change agents?

After looking at the weak collection of candidates available to vote for as Time's Person of the Year last week (based on what they did in 2006, which wasn't much), I wrote:

Perhaps YouTube, online forums, blogs, vlogs, podcasts, and online media should be the Thing of the Year: The Shadow Media. Of course, Time would be writing about its own likely eventual demise, but it would fit.

That's essentially what Time has done in its mostly (in my opinion) good decision to name "You" as Person of the Year:

..... for seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game, TIME's Person of the Year for 2006 is you.

Time named as "You" everyone trying to influence the world just a bit from their keyboard. That would include, to a miniscule degree, yours truly, and, again of course, many people who are reading this post.

Oh-so-predictably, two of the three "hard-news" members of the magazine's "15 citizens of the digital democracy" are influencers from the left side; none are from the right -- sorry, libs, a milblogger is not presumptively "conservative" (direct links may not work unless you have already visited Time's web site):

Chris Wallace had Ted Kennedy cornered. The Fox News Sunday host displayed Kennedy's 1995 bitter condemnation of welfare reform: "legislative child abuse . . . let them eat cake." As Wallace began to reference the statement, Kennedy blustered "this is 2006" - as if his past misjudgments are irrelevant though he palpably has learned nothing from them.

Wallace made the point that, contrary to Kennedy's dire predictions, the employment rate among unmarried women has soared and the child poverty rate has dropped. He put it to Kennedy: "hasn't welfare reform worked?" Fighting back, the senior senator from Massachusetts claimed that Wallace's numbers on child poverty "are absolutely wrong," asserting there has been an increase in the number of children living in poverty in the United States. He then dropped this bomb:

"We have 36 million Americans that are going to bed hungry every night. 36 million Americans! And 12 million of those are children!"

View video of Kennedy's 36-million claim here.

I have been the victim of invasion of privacy as well as identity theft for close to two years now and the crime was possibly committed by employees of a major U.S. federal law enforcement agency.

I have submitted several complaints to the internal affairs division of the US Marshals Service. I received a letter from Chief Inspector Yvonne Bonner of the USDOJ, USMS Office of Inspection dated September 19, 2005 stating

“Our office has received all of the necessary information from you to proceed with this matter. Due to privacy concerns you are not entitled to know the outcome of the investigation“.

I have contacted the U.S. Attorney General, Alberto Gonzalez, the Inspector General Glenn A. Fine and the Director of the F.B.I. Robert S. Mueller, III with evidence substantiating obstruction of justice by another senior member of the USMS John J. McNulty III Chief, Office of Congressional Affairs, USDOJ, USMS. They all refuse to respond.

The MRC's new Culture and Media Institute has already drawn national press attention by making a Christmas list -- not your everyday Christmas list, mind you, but a list of who's been naughty in denying Christmas in the public square, and who's nice in upholding traditions. The list of "Santa's Helpers" and "Grinches" is here. CMI's Kristen Fyfe explained:

It seems almost ridiculous that acknowledging Christmas should be controversial.  In a country where 96% of the citizens celebrate it, why do so many feel like Christmas is under attack?  An online poll done by the Chicago Tribune last week showed that 68% of respondents think there is a war on Christmas.  Why?

Actual caption:

Actor William Shatner, left, and former NBC anchor Tom Brokaw, right, pose prior to an Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame induction ceremony, during which they were inducted, Thursday, Dec. 14, 2006, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (AP Photo/Danny Moloshok)