In the wake of his gig at The White House Correspondents Dinner, Steven Colbert scored a profile on tonight's 60 Minutes.

You can view the video here.

Here's how the segment began:

And now for some fake news, The Colbert Report. If you flip through the cable news channels any week night, you're bound to see a collection of talking heads, or rather, shouting heads, who draw large audiences with a diet of often wildly inaccurate but patriotic and combative noise. The shows are not exactly news or entertainment but are exactly outrageous. Bill O'Reilly perfected the formula on FOX and others have successfully followed his recipe. With all of their excesses, it was only a matter of time before someone came along to skewer them. Well, the eagle has landed.

Roger Friedman, who writes the "Fox 411" for FoxNews.com, reported Saturday that Barbara Walters decided to pick Rosie O'Donnell to replace Meredith Vieira after being touched to tears at a screening of Rosie's documentary about her gay-family cruises. (Update: The New York Times confirms today. See below.)

Friedman began with the note that O'Donnell's contract apparently states she cannot chop off her hair to look "butch" as she did at the bitter, back-biting end of her last daytime talk show. It should be noted that Friedman doesn't nail every detail in his report, since he calls Elisabeth Hasselbeck "Debbie." Is he still remembering the long-departed first "View" co-host to get the boot, Debbie Matenopoulos? Here's a sample of his take:

You may wonder when and how this arrangement with "The View" came about. I was not surprised to be told that it all occurred on the night that HBO screened Rosie and her partner Kelli’s documentary about their gay family cruise line about a month ago. I distinctly recall Barbara Walters coming out of the screening room, wiping tears from her eyes. It was quite obvious as the mother of an adopted daughter, she was incredibly moved.

At the annual White House Correspondents' Association Dinner, President Bush first appeared with Steve Bridges, who's made a name for himself impersonating Bush on national television. Bush would say something and the impersonator would say what he "really" thought. RightWinged has a video of the routine.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Members of the White House Correspondents' Association, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen --

BUSH IMPERSONATOR: Here I am.

(Laughter)

Here I am at another one of these dang press dinners. Could be home asleep, little Barney curled up at my feet. But no, I've got to pretend I like being here.

(Laughter)

The media really ticks me off. The way they try to embarrass me by not editing what I say.

(Laughter)

Among the news items that the MSM ignored last week in favor of $2.82 gas (source: Barron's):

• Retail store sales were up 4.1% year-over-year
• Same-store sales were up 5.1% year-over-year
• Consumer Confidence rose to 109.6, well above the consensus estimate range
• The housing bust continues to track the elusive Afghan Winter, as existing home sales rose slightly, when they were expected to decline
• This was offset somewhat by a decline in mortgage applications
• Durable goods orders were up 6.1%
• New home sales soared 13.8% in March, even as prices moderated and supply dropped
• Jobless claims sat pretty much where they have been for the last 2 years
• Employment cost index was up 2.8% y/y, but we'll need to evaluate that in terms of the productivity index, due out this week
• The GDP boomed, oncusmer sentiment (a different survey from consumer confidence) held, and the Purchasing Managers' index showed continued strong growth.

Despite the strong housing market, MSNBC still found time to quote USA Today as saying that the "strong housing market is slipping."

MSNBC's First Read continued its obsession with gas prices to the exclusion of, well, all other economic news this past week. A rough word-count of economic reporting on First Read's blog shows that of 3500 words devoted to economics, 3250 were about gas prices. This does not include a Monday posting ostensibly about the Dahab bombing that spent the second paragraph talking about oil prices.

Ironically, First Read is aware of the problem, even if they don't know that they know. On Friday:

Asked in the April 21-24 NBC/Wall Street Journal poll who is most responsible for high gas prices, 37% of those polled say the oil companies are most responsible. Oil-producing nations rank second at 22%, while only 15% lay the most blame at President Bush's feet and 4% say Congress bears the most responsibility.

Last week, we noted how MSNBC's First Read blog had reprinted the New York Daily News's misquote of a CNN poll about how oil prices were affecting families. In the poll, 23% said that gas prices were having a "severe effect," 46% said they were having a "moderate effect." The Daily News and First Read both reported 69% under the "severe effect" label.

On Friday, in response to my email, First Read issued the following correction:

On Tuesday, we quoted a New York Daily News article, which cited a CNN poll showing that 69% indicate gas prices are causing them severe hardship. However, the actual poll finds that 69% say these prices are causing them "hardship", not "severe hardship."

You can’t miss it on television or radio. There are even some newspaper reports of the cry... “Too Soon...Too Soon!”

All accounts are referring to the release of the new motion picture “United 93”, a graphic portrait of the events which unfolded on September 11, 2001. This motion picture is mainly from the perspective of those who were aboard the fourth aircraft on that fatal day and how they responded to the highjackers. The hijacking of United 93 and the unprovoked attacks upon the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were more than the equivalent of the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. They were the events, which triggered our War Against Islamic Terrorism.

During those first weeks following the attacks we were a united country. There was a seriousness of tone on radio and television. The newspapers lauded those responding to a call to arms. Flags appeared on buildings and were flown from car antennas. Patriotic songs were written.

Throughout much of the 1990’s, prescient social analysts such as Pat Buchanan and Michael Savage warned of the changes that would take place in our nation should the government of the United States fail to get control over the flood of immigration that was pouring across the border. At the time, those viewing radical hypertolerance as more important than cultural survival dismissed such warnings as the ravings of lunatics. However, now that increasing numbers of Americans finally want something done about the matter, it may be too late.

In response to certain provisions of the so-called “immigration reform” being considered in Congress that would have criminalized being in the United States illegally, mobs of radical malcontents have taken to the streets no doubt to insinuate violence should political leaders refuse to acquiesce to their demands. Most accounts from the media infiltrated by internationalist sympathizers claim that these demonstrations are expressions of peaceful dissent concerned for the rights of all living within (for at least a few more days) this great country. However, upon closer examination, nothing could be farther from the truth.

I'm enjoying Ramesh Ponnuru's new book "The Party of Death," particularly its chapter on the media, "Scribes of the Party of Death." (And that's not just because Ramesh cites my study with Rich Noyes on partial-birth abortion coverage, and how the networks rarely explain what on Earth happens in one.) This is a great line about the New York Times: "The kids at Hogwarts speak the name of Voldemort more freely than the Times editors use the phrase partial-birth abortion." Ramesh brings in his media-elite expert:

Longtime Newsweek correspondent Kenneth Woodward points out that if the editors of the Times really believe the phrase should be avoided because it's not a medical term, they should also remove references to "heart attacks" from their pages as well. If they want to avoid it because one side of the debate objects to it, "female genital mutilation" would have to go as well. The result is not only confusing stories; it is, as Woodward writes, that "every story is framed as a narrative of assault on Roe v. Wade."

Ultraliberal economist John Kenneth Galbraith, perhaps best known to TV/political junkies as an on-air sparring partner of William F. Buckley, has died at the age of 97. I remember seeing the two spar over one of the party conventions on the "Today" show way back when. (I'm guessing it was 1980.) Can you imagine "Today" hosting two intellectuals having a little debate around the conventions today? Today's morning-show world is more likely to be devoted to plastic convention publicity schticks like Republican rappers (remember TRQ, anyone?) and precocious, mop-headed eight-year-old Democrats.

The New York Times greeted Galbraith's death with the headline "Economist Held a Mirror to Society." Apparently, if you believe capitalism is all about the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer, and you believe avidly in massive government intervention in the economy, you "hold a mirror to society." Or at least a mirror to the face of the New York Times.

Hater/Tom/Zapta:  I certainly hope that YOU have learned something about telling the truth and about not being a HYPORCITE.  And, as for your BANNED friend Montana Lyons, he was BANNED for doing exactly what you did:  Losing his COOL and engaging in multi-forum flame posts.  Tsk...tsk...

Now YOU are losing you COOL again and "censoring" (moderating) posts that reveal you to be an anti-intellectual/intellectually dishonest person.  I thought liberals were supposed to be "for" FREE SPEECH?  Whatsamatter Tommie boy?  Afraid of the truth?  What's funny is that you don't realize that all someone needs to do it click on the TITLE of the post, and the post pops up on a separate window, so your LOSING YOUR COOL and "censoring" is meaningless!  LOL!

Tsk..tsk..