James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal's online opinion section, Opinionjournal.com, made this interesting observation in his "Best of The Web Today" column:

Tom Fox, a member of the anti-American Christian Peacekeeper Teams, has been murdered by terrorists in Iraq who held him hostage for more than three months, the New York Times reported on Saturday. On Sunday, the paper carried a follow-up report that Fox "had apparently been tortured by his captors before being shot multiple times in the head and dumped on a trash heap next to a railway line in western Baghdad."

Here in Annapolis, Maryland, local, state, and national media remained silent while Democrats in the General Assembly quietly overrode no less than three vetos by Republican Governor Bob Ehrlich, making Maryland's voting laws the least transparent and most liberal in the nation. From local and state news sources, not a word was breathed. From the national media, including, even, Fox News... Nothing!

Only author and WSJ columnist John Fund seems to have noted Maryland's radical moves towards their new "vote early and often" elections policy. As Fund aptly notes:

It should normally be difficult to pick the worst state legislature in America, but Maryland's is way out in front. First it overrode GOP Gov. Bob Ehrlich's veto of a special health-care tax on Wal-Mart. Democratic legislators then passed three election-related bills and again mustered the necessary three-fifths votes to overturn his vetoes. Together the election laws would so weaken safeguards against voter fraud as to make Maryland the nation's prime example of Election Day irresponsibility.

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.

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."

Today, a Washington Post Op-Ed columnist, Dave Ignatius said this of the Bush Administration:

There is a temptation that seeps into the souls of even the most righteous politicians and leads them to bend the rules, and eventually the truth, to suit the political needs of the moment. That arrogance of power is on display with the Bush administration.

Of course, Mr. Ignatius is referring to the latest MSM obsession, the unfortunate accident in which Vice President Chaney peppered a friend with shotgun pellets while on a hunting trip. While the Vice President's friend is expected to fully recover, the mainstream media has so far spent the entire week obsessing over the 24-hour delay in the announcement of this incident. And, while part of the media frenzy is justifiably related to the unusual nature of the accident, the 24-hour delay has rankled the Washington media beyond all understanding.

Why?

Why, over a weekend so full of news regarding important issues, such as Al Gore's disgraceful speech in Jeddah, or the growing strength of the American economy, or even the troubling issue of Iran's decision to go forward with their uranium enrichment process -- defying the UN in a direct manner -- has the press chosen to obsess over a minor hunting accident? How obsessed is the MSM over this story? Here's an example for you:

The first words issued by NBC Nightly News host Brian Williams tonight were as follows:

"The plot thickens. Tonight, the President reveals new details about an alleged terrorist plot involving hijackers, shoe bombers, and a sky scraper in Los Angeles.

But there are questions."

And with that, Brian Williams launched into what appared to be quite a skeptical analysis of the details released by President Bush today regarding the foiled plot to hijack a passenger jet and crash it into an L.A. sky scraper.

This is going to be controversial.

In an article written earlier today by Benny Morris and published by the UK's Guardian Unlimited newspaper, famous historian and civil rights activist John Hope Franklin had this to say regarding his home:

"This country is so arrogant, so self-certain," he says, asked whether the west is now engaged with the Muslim world in a war of civilisations. "I am not sure that is what we are confronting. [But I am also] not sure we have done what we ought to have done to cultivate the rest of the world. We're so powerful and so presumptuous that it makes us unattractive, almost unbecoming. We don't treat other countries and people right. Power without grace is a curse."