When you have the following meeting of the minds in a public forum - NBC News White House Correspondent David Gregory, former "CBS Evening News" anchor Dan Rather, New York Times White House correspondent David Sanger, and former White House bureau chief and correspondent for United Press International Helen Thomas - there's a near certainty something outrageous will be said.

And that was the case on November 26 at The National Press Club when this roundtable discussion occurred for the taping of "The Kalb Report," a public affairs program broadcasted on various television stations throughout the country.

[Click here for audio]

Gregory Considers White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett a ‘Minister of Propaganda'

This morning's tragic incident in Afghanistan, when a suicide bomber blew himself up outside the gate of the U.S. military base where Vice President Dick Cheney was staying, seems to answer any questions regarding "excessive secrecy" of Cheney's trip to Pakistan and then Afghanistan.

But as of this morning, New York Times reporter David Sanger had his doubts. In his Tuesday morning print story, "Cheney Warns Pakistan To Act Against Terrorists," Sanger devoted a great deal of space to the "unusual secrecy" surrounding Cheney's trip.

Bush stubbornly refuses to give up on the Iraq war, despite what New York Times reporters insists was the message delivered by the voters in November, and they're peeved at him. Congressional correspondent Sheryl Gay Stolberg reacts to Bush's Iraq speech last night outlining his plan for more troops in Iraq in her Thursday "news analysis," "Bush's Strategy for Iraq Risks Confrontations on Many Fronts."

"By stepping up the American military presence in Iraq, President Bush is not only inviting an epic clash with the Democrats who run Capitol Hill. He is ignoring the results of the November elections, rejecting the central thrust of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group and flouting the advice of some of his own generals, as well as Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq."

The inevitable comparison to Vietnam comes up halfway in.

"Augusto Pinochet, 91, Dictator Who Ruled by Terror in Chile, Dies" reads the headline to Jonathan Kandell's front-page obituary for the Chilean ruler in the New York Times Monday. A related editorial calls Pinochet "The Dextrous Dictator" (perhaps a play on words, as the Latin root of dextrous is dexter, meaning "on the right side," hardy har har).

Here's the lead of Kandell's obituary for Pinochet today:

"Gen. Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, the brutal dictator who repressed and reshaped Chile for nearly two decades and became a notorious symbol of human rights abuse and corruption, died yesterday at the Military Hospital of Santiago."

New York Times reporer David Sanger lets the snark fly in Hanoi while marking Bush's post-election trip to Communist Vietnam on Sunday.

While the rest of the press played up liberal-minded comparisons between the Vietnam War and the Iraq War and brought up old and unsubstantiated claims about Bush's Vietnam-era National Guard service, Sanger finds a different anti-Bush angle, one he’s used before – the president’s evidently disturbing lack of curiosity about the world.