In celebrities section of Newsweek this week, the "Q&A" feature is an interview with actor and director Robert Redford. Newsweek's David Gates asked him about how did he "start getting obsessed with Watergate." Redford said when he heard reporters whispering after the break-in that there was more to it, "But nobody wanted to f--- with him." He said of Nixon: "He gave me an award once -- I was 13, he was a senator. I remember being struck by what a bad vibe I got from the guy." Then Redford grew more desperate in tone:

Newsweek: What's the political landscape look like to you today?
Redford: Now you pick up the paper and there's a Watergate every day. I don't think anyone's connecting the dots and saying to the public, "Wake up, folks, because you could end up in a totalitarian nightmare, wondering what happened to your country."

Here's an analysis of the media coverage on Wednesday, February 15, 2006 of Vice President Cheney.

Hardball with Chris Matthews, 7pm - 8pm Eastern. MSNBC
Time Spent: 60 minutes
Segments: Each and everyone

The O'Reilly Factor, 8pm - 9pm Eastern. FOX News
Time spent: 12 minutes
Segments: 2 (Talking Points Memo, Segment, Brief segment playing interview with Brit Hume)

Countdown with Keith Olbermann, 8pm - 9pm Eastern. MSNBC
Time Spent: 30 minutes
Segments: 2 1/2 (2 full segments, 1 trivial)

Hannity & Colmes, 9pm - 10pm Eastern. FOX News
Time Spent: 18 minutes
Segments: 2 (Segment, Brief segment playing interview with Brit Hume)

According to an AP story written by Beth Fouhy, Senator Hillary Clinton's wax likeness is set to be unveiled this Thursday at Madame Tussaud's wax museum:

.. complete with a campaign-style balloon drop, flags and a full-throated rendering of "Hail to the Chief."

The article goes on to inform us of the details:

The Clinton statue, crafted at the original Tussauds museum in London, will take its place in a wing dedicated to presidents and other public figures known as "the gallery." There, the likeness of the Democratic senator will join statues of Presidents Bush, Reagan, Kennedy, and her husband, Bill Clinton.

Over at NRO's Media Blog, Stephen Spruiell hits a point I meant to hit. As much as I disliked the Post's flood-the-zone Cheney-hunt coverage today (Top of page one, then two more stories on A-10, Kurtz on the Hume interview on front page of Style), there were two stories that showed the Post thinking outside the typical liberal-media box. 

The first is "The Legal Woes of Rep. Jefferson" — a front-page look at a Democrat mired in scandal that punctures the notion, promoted by Democrats, that Republicans are the only ones with ethics problems:

The investigation of Jefferson and the recent guilty plea by a former aide give Republicans the chance to argue that corruption in Washington has a bipartisan tinge.

Republican groups frequently invoke the Jefferson case in defending their party from broad-brush charges of corruption. Even Public Citizen, a liberal consumer watchdog group, featured Jefferson on an "Ethics Hall of Shame" list recently.

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Is it possible? Could there be a new angle to the controversy surrounding Vice President Cheney’s hunting accident? Desperate to try and keep this story alive, CBS’s "The Early Show" certainly tried to create one today as they attempted to highlight the Vice President’s "unprecedented power" and explore the rift this incident exposed between the Presidential and Vice Presidential staffs.

Take the following quote from CBS News Senior White House Correspondent Bill Plante referring to how the Vice President chose to put the word out for example:

Bill Plante: "In any other White House, no Vice President would be able to make that call. But Dick Cheney is in a class by himself. It is clear, and this exposed it, that there are tensions between his office and the West Wing.

The White House press corps is completely fair to Republicans and not only that Helen Thomas was "never, never" accused of being biased while she was a reporter.

That at least seems to be the view from the fishbowl of the veteran reporter-turned-columnist who sounded off in a highly contentious interview yesterday with radio host Hugh Hewitt. (Transcript and audio available at Radio Blogger.)

"I worked for United Press International for more than fifty years, and I wrote straight copy. I was never, never accused of bias," Thomas said. "I did not bow out of the human race. I permitted myself to care, to believe, to think. But I assure you, I assure you that it did not get in my copy."

Thomas also refused to state whether she disliked President Bush and became increasingly agitated at Hewitt's tough questioning. (Only Republican presidents deserve hard questions, after all.) More quotes below the fold.

Matt Drudge of The Drudge Report today highlights a recent SFGATE.com article written by Matea Gold of the LA Times entitled Critics slam Cheney's interview choice.  As predicted, the assualt on the Vice President, who waited approximately 24 hours before making an official announcement over the shooting incident this past weekend, has modified somewhat to include an assault on Fox News as well:

For days, the White House news corps has pounded the Bush administration, demanding to learn more about Vice President Dick Cheney's accidental shooting of a hunting companion Saturday.

Another double standard?

Last week, the New York Times haughtily washed its hands of the controversial Mohammad cartoons, saying it had no intention of printing them because it was the paper’s policy to avoid “gratuitous assaults on religious symbols.” (Though that didn't prevent the paper from running a photo of "The Virgin Mary" painting clotted with elephant dung). Besides, the editorial sniffed, “the cartoons are so easy to describe in words.”

But while the Times may have passed on defending free expression in order to avoid protests from Muslims, it’s apparently not concerned about stoking Muslim opinion against the United States and the war in Iraq, judging by its decision today to run a three-year-old photo of a prisoner at Abu Ghraib.

The women of ABC’s The View quickly pounced on the Cheney shooting story. The Monday, February 13 edition featured co-host Joy Behar, who stated that the incident shifted Cheney’s image "from Dr. Evil to Dr. Stupid." She added, "So, in a way, it’s kind of like, hey, I’m not so evil anymore. I’m just dumb." Behar then finished her critique when she quipped, "It’s in the historical context of Dan Quayle."

Barbara Walters also participated in the segment, airing at 11:18AM EST. She wasn’t interested in the shooting accident, but preferred to convict Cheney for involvement in the CIA leak case:

"I mean, I think he’s possibly in more trouble because his chief of staff, Scooter Libby, who has been indicted for releasing information about a CIA agent, which is against the law, has said that it was his superiors, or superior, who said that he could do this. Who is his superior? Richard Cheney."

            The Japanese have gone so gung-ho with energy conservation that some parts of that nation have turned off heat and leave workers freezing at their desks. Rather than criticize what would likely be illegal were it tried in America, Post reporter Anthony Faiola lauded it, suggesting “perhaps no people serve as better role models than the energy-miser Japanese.”

            That wasn’t the story Faiola presented. Images of shivering workers, massive government regulation and enormous costs were commonplace in his February 16, front-page piece. “To save on energy, local officials shut off the heating system in the town hall, leaving themselves and 100 workers no respite from near-freezing temperatures,” he explained. The story said “rows of desks were brimming with employees bundled in coats and wool blankets while nursing thermoses of hot tea.”

An unsuspecting viewer watching this morning's Today show would have thought Fox News failed to disclose that VP Cheney, during his interview with Brit Hume, acknowledged having a beer at lunch on the day of the shooting incident.

But when it comes to the MSM, it pays to be 'suspecting.'

Here's how NBC White House reporter Kelly O'Donnell artfully chose her words:

"The official White House transcript of the interview shows Cheney said 'I had a beer at lunch.' Fox News did not show that particular clip during Brit Hume's program."

I was jarred by O'Donnell's statement since, having watched "Brit Hume's program" - Special Report - I was certain I had heard reference to the mid-day beer. And sure enough, a transcript of Special Report confirms it:

The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz today offers up an analysis of why Vice President Cheney chose Brit Hume -- and only Brit Hume -- to go public with the details of his hunting accident. This, of course, will be the next phase of the media's assault on the Vice President's character, which is about to become an assault on the character of Fox News as well; why would the Vice President forgo a press conference for an in-depth interview with just one person.

Former Clinton spokesman, Mike McCurry said this of Hume:

Hume was "impartial and balanced and fair" as an ABC correspondent covering Clinton, but that "he's in advocacy journalism now."

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There were some eye-opening remarks from Bryant Gumbel on the most recent episode of HBO's Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel. According to a transcript posted by a television columnist named Seth Frelich, Gumbel said the following in his closing monologue last week (emphasis mine):

"Finally, tonight, the Winter Games. Count me among those who don’t like them and won’t watch them ... Because they’re so trying, maybe over the next three weeks we should all try too. Like, try not to be incredulous when someone attempts to link these games to those of the ancient Greeks who never heard of skating or skiing. So try not to laugh when someone says these are the world’s greatest athletes, despite a paucity of blacks that makes the Winter Games look like a GOP convention. Try not to point out that something’s not really a sport if a pseudo-athlete waits in what’s called a kiss-and-cry area, while some panel of subjective judges decides who won ... So if only to hasten the arrival of the day they’re done, when we can move on to March Madness — for God’s sake, let the games begin."

Video clip (31 secs), from the Real Sports originally aired February 7, as provided by the MRC's Brent Baker: Real (885 KB), Windows Media (1 MB) or MP3 audio (185 KB).

I suppose that quoting Al Franken for evidence of liberal media bias is, if you'll excuse the expression, like shooting fish in a barrel.

Nevertheless, perhaps it's useful for the archives to record one of Franken's remarks this evening in the course of his appearance on MSNBC's 'Scarborough Country.'

Commenting on Vice President Cheney's decision not to follow Harry Whittington to the hospital, Franken mused:

"It's inconceivable that you don't go to the hospital unless there's a reason you don't go to the hospital. If you had been drinking, you wouldn't go to the hospital. Or, you're an amazing jerk, that's the other. Or both."

Admitting he hadn’t seen the interview, at about 4:15pm EST Wednesday on CNN’s The Situation Room, Jack Cafferty charged that “it didn't exactly represent a profile in courage for the Vice President to wander over there to the F-word network for a sit-down with Brit Hume. I mean, that's a little like Bonnie interviewing Clyde, ain't it?” Cafferty soon called FNC a “safe haven” for Dick Cheney and predicted “he's not going to get any high hard ones from anybody at the F-word network." CNN colleague Lou Dobbs opened his show by complaining: “Vice President Cheney finally talking about his shooting accident, but to only one news organization. Is that full disclosure or is it blatant news management?" Guest Michael Goodwin of the New York Daily News called it “ridiculous” for Cheney to give “one interview to his favorite network.”And later, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann castigated Cheney for choosing the “more malleable cameras of Fox News" in place of a press conference.

Over on the broadcast network evening newscasts, NBC’s David Gregory, the most aggressive reporter in the White House press briefings, fired back at Hume, suggesting either Hume had an anti-White House press corps axe to grind or at least that Cheney chose him because of that opinion: "Speaking out for the first time, the Vice President chose to speak with Fox anchor Brit Hume, a former White House correspondent, he has been outspoken in his criticism of the White House press corps' coverage of this story." On the CBS Evening News, correspondent Jim Axelrod characterized FNC as a “friendly” venue: "The Vice President chose to make his first public comments on Fox News Channel's Special Report, a broadcast Mr. Cheney sees as friendly, and has turned to before.” One doubts reporters presumed Vice President Al Gore was going to friendly media when he sat down with ABC, CBS, NBC or CNN. (Fuller transcripts follow.)

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