CNN is reporting that Tony Snow is "likely to accept the job as White House press secretary, succeeding Scott McClellan."

Sources close to the White House said Monday that Fox anchor Tony Snow is likely to accept the job as White House press secretary, succeeding Scott McClellan.

The sources said they expect him to announce his decision within the next few days.

A source familiar with the discussions said Monday that newly appointed Chief of Staff Josh Bolten asked Snow to make a decision by early this week.

Two sources familiar with the discussions said Bolten wanted to fill the post this week, as early as Tuesday.

NBC's Andrea Mitchell complained Monday night, on MSNBC's Countdown, about how the CIA's firing of a staffer ostensibly for leaking top secret information to a reporter, will mean CIA officials will no longer have the “courage or the stupidity” to talk to reporters. After relaying how, through friends the fired staffer, Mary McCarthy, had denied being a source for the Washington Post's secret CIA prison story, though she conceded having unauthorized interaction with journalists, Mitchell contended that intimidation of the rest of the staff was the real motivation for firing McCarthy: “The purpose is don't even have lunch with reporters. The purpose is don't have dinner with reporters. Don't pick up the phone if a reporter is calling. It doesn't matter what you say, you're not supposed to have contact with reporters without telling the higher-ups." Maybe the CIA wouldn't have such concerns if they had any faith in journalists to act more responsibly than did the Washington Post's Dana Priest. (Partial transcript follows)

Much as this column is quick to point out the prevalent liberal bias of the MSM, fairness compels us to acknowledge those occasions, rare as they might be, when the MSM plays it down the middle.

NBC's handling of the recent spike in gasoline prices could be shaping up to be one of those flying-pig moments of 'fair & balanced' coverage. At the very least, there are indications that the conventional wisdom within NBC News is that the Bush administration is not to blame for the high prices, and/or that there is little government can do to stem the price rise.

As noted here earlier today, Katie Couric and David Gregory both expressed skepticism on this morning's Today show as to the government's ability to do much in the circumstances. Gregory was back at it this evening, guest-hosting for Chris Matthews on 'Hardball.'

On Thursday's edition of CNN's The Situation Room, pundit commentator, Jack Cafferty called President Bush a hypocrite for "lecturing" Chinese President Hu about human rights. Cafferty blames President Bush for several human rights violations he has deemed, including the Patriot Act.

Video link.

Transcript follows.

Anyone still intent on believing the nonsensical argument that because most media outlets are corporate-owned this makes them somehow conservative should head over to Michelle Malkin's new web video channel, Hot Air and watch her first episode which talks about the extent to which American companies are assisting the efforts of China's communist government to repress its citizens.

Dear Boston Globe Readers:

You may not have known it from our coverage, but Easter was last weekend.

- The Ombud

Well, one thing’s for sure. She won’t be humming “I Love New York” when she gets back to LA.

With all those reviews damning her debut Broadway performance in Richard Greenberg’s “Three Days of Rain,” the only question is this – life behind bars or the death penalty. Whoops. My mistake. I’m thinking of Zacarias Moussaoui, the man who’s accused of trying to hijack a fifth airplane, on 9/11, with the White House in mind as a target.

Still, even this guy, a terrorist, never got Julia’s reviews. Lackluster, stiff, long-nosed, and one reviewer even said that he “hated” her.

There’s been nothing that harsh for Moussaoui, or even for shoe bomber Richard Reid. Yasser Arafat is still dead but still gets better press than Julia, as does all of Hamas. The president of China did not get a terrific reception from President Bush, but nobody called Hu Jin-tao long-nosed.

Time reports that Fox News commentator Tony Snow has been given the go-ahead by doctors to consider the job of White House press secretary.

Snow, a father of three and a sax player, is the bona fide outsider that Republican allies have long prescribed for Bushworld and would bring irreverence to a place that hasn't seen a lot of fun lately. "White Houses are weird places," he told a 2004 panel on White House speechwriting. Snow had his colon removed after he was found to have cancer last year, but his doctors have approved the possibility of his taking the grueling post.

New York Times Managing Editor Jill Abramson gave a lecture last week called "The Future of the New York Times." In it she drops this bomb:

She distinguished the Times from many bloggers, saying, "We believe in a journalism of verification rather than assertion."

Oh really, do you? Would that be anything like the verification done on Jayson Blair when he fabricated his own fabrications while the Times socially promoted him up through the ranks based on skin color? Or would that be like the verification done in the attribution of Rick Bragg's bylines? Or perhaps she's talking about the verification done on Nik Cohn's fabrications. Because I'm sure she's not talking about Michael Finkel's fabrications or A.J. Lieblings fabrications, or even when Jesse McKinley accepted a $50,000 "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" makeover. Maybe she's talking about the verification done on Bernard Weinraub's plagiarism, I just don't know.

Jonathan Last writes about the evils of the Internet for the Philly Inquirer, and by evil he means blogs.

On Fox News Sunday, liberal commentator and NPR correspondent Juan Williams praised fired CIA officer Mary McCarthy, claiming that what she did was an "an act of honor."

Williams got into an argument with Brit Hume and host Chris Wallace. William Kristol later jumped in.

(HT RealClearPolitics)

BRIT HUME: That is not an exercise simply of First Amendment rights. This was a violation of her oath and her responsibility.
CHRIS WALLACE: All right. I'm going to...
JUAN WILLIAMS: Let me -- no, let me...
CHRIS WALLACE: No, no, no. No.
WILLIAMS: Let me just quickly respond.
Brit, she took a risk. She was very aware of what she had signed. She is now bearing the cost of having broken that pledge.
WALLACE: So this is an act of conscience?
WILLIAMS: And so in that sense, yes, I do believe it's an act of honor.
WALLACE: And if it's an act of conscience, then why did she do it surreptitiously?
WILLIAMS: What?

Sunday's off-lead story by David Cloud is on Mary McCarthy, the CIA analyst fired for leaking classified information about suspected terrorists allegedly being held in secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe. It comes under the comforting headline "Colleagues Say C.I.A. Analyst Played by Rules."

"On Thursday, the C.I.A. fired Ms. McCarthy, 61, accusing her of leaking information to reporters about overseas prisons operated by the agency in the years since the Sept. 11 attacks. But despite Ms. McCarthy's independent streak, some colleagues who worked with her at the White House and other offices during her intelligence career say they cannot imagine her as a leaker of classified information."

Cynthia "fists of fury" McKinney is in trouble again:

Move over Britney Spears, Cynthia McKinney's — oops! — done it again.

The flap-plagued congresswoman, who has been in the media spotlight since she scuffled with a Capitol Hill police officer last month, was caught bad-mouthing a senior staffer Saturday.

Unfortunately for McKinney, a DeKalb County Democrat who is running for re-election in the 4th Congressional District, a TV microphone she was wearing picked up her indelicate grumbling.

"Crap!" an irritated McKinney is heard saying after ending an interview with CBS 46 in which reporter Renee Starzyk repeatedly asked about the fallout from the police dust-up. "You know what? They lied to Coz and Coz is a fool."

Tech site Red Herring says the traditional media continues to lose out in advertising revenue.

In another clear sign that times are changing for the advertising industry, a new report said that Internet advertising revenues in the United States in 2005 totaled $12.5 billion, an all-time, single-year record.

The report, released Thursday by the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers, said the 2005 total represents a 30 percent increase over 2004. Revenue in the fourth quarter of 2005 was $3.6 billion, a 34 percent boost from the same period in 2004.

“Interactive advertising continues to experience tremendous growth as marketers experience its overall effectiveness in building brands and delivering online and offline sales,” said Greg Stuart, chief executive of the Interactive Advertising Bureau.

Far from condemning a CIA officials damaging leak of classified information about ongoing efforts to prevent terrorism, on the Sunday morning interview shows, three panelists -- a former network White House correspondent, a newspaper and radio veteran and a current network anchor -- hailed Mary McCarthy, the CIA staffer fired last week for telling the Washington Post's Dana Priest about secret prisons in Eastern Europe. ABC's Sam Donaldson heralded the revelations as “a victory for the American people" and compared her actions to those sitting at lunch counters in the 1960s, NPR's Juan Williams trumpeted her “right to speak” and her “act of conscience” and CBS's Bob Schieffer characterized the prisons as what “scares” him and claimed the “CIA fired an agent for hanging out” with a reporter. (Transcripts follow.)

When yet another gloomy segment on gas prices and the pessimistic prospects for the GOP finally drew to an end on this morning's Today show, you might have thought that a fluffy piece on crosswords and how mental games help keep aging minds sharp would have offered a respite from liberal media bias.

Think again.

Hollywood-handsome NBC reporter Peter Alexander somehow managed to work into his segment clips of two liberal icons: Bill Clinton and Jon Stewart! Both are apparently crossword aficionados. Who knew?

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