Ten years ago today, a website whose name at the time was unknown to most Americans released information about the President of the United States having an affair with a 22-year-old White House intern.

This eventually led to impeachment proceedings against then President Bill Clinton - which many political analysts feel is a partial cause of the continued acrimony and contentiousness between Democrats and Republicans across the country - whilst also radically changing the journalism industry as we know it.

Lest we not forget how this sad event impacted sexual mores in our nation, unquestionably for the worse.

Given the extraordinary historical importance of this event to America and Americans on so many levels -- and the wife of the president in question currently involved in a presidential campaign of her own -- one has to wonder just how much focus media will give this anniversary today.

Thankfully, we can always count on journalists across the Pond to report that which goes counter to our press's agenda; here's what the British Times had to say about this issue (emphasis added):

File this under the Misleading Headlines category. On Drudge today, there was a link to a story headlined Greenwich School Bans Desserts. Drudge's link was entitled 'School Bans Desserts; Parents Given Strict Policy For Bag Lunches'. The only problem with this was that that was NOT the actual content of the story. According to the actual story, as reported by WCBS TV Channel 2 in Connecticut,

Glenville School in Greenwich is trying to turn things around, starting this year ice cream and cookies are no longer sold in the cafeteria. Instead they have fruit and yogurt as an option. Parents were doing their best, sending their kids to school with healthy lunches or hoping they'd make decent choices if they were buying lunch at school. But when cookies and ice cream were offered two days a week, things changed in a hurry.

In other words, the school simply ceased selling certain desserts in the school cafeteria- they did not ban students from eating said desserts, nor are students forbidden from bringing these desserts from home.

Time's Joe Klein is unhappy with Matt Drudge, and thinks he's a disgrace.

Why, you ask?

Because Drudge posted a headline at his website Tuesday which Klein thinks is out of context with the linked Associated Press article.

Imagine that.

Here's the beef Klein posted at Time's Swampland blog Tuesday (emphasis added):

Marshall University psychology professor W. Joseph Wyatt should probably stick to psychology as oposed to attempting media analysis. However, he has decided to write an op-ed in the Huntington, West Viriginia Herald Dispatch claiming that media bias is a myth. Professor Wyatt begins by claiming that,

However, a 2002 Gallup poll showed that slightly more than a third of journalists describe themselves as Democrats, meaning that the vast majority are something else, and unlikely to be liberal.

Unfortunately for the good professor, a 2007 Gallup poll as reported in the American Journalist actually found that,

When it came to the subject of party affiliation, 36% of the journalists said they were Democrats in 2002 compared with 44% in 1992.

Is the Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) politically picky when taking umbrage with topics pursued by the media? Could be. After Matt Drudge of the Drudge Report posted the "Obama Wife Slams Hillary" headline across his site, CJR ran an article complaining Drudge Barks, TV News Bites.

It seems the CJR is upset that Drudge's headline sparked a media feeding frenzy in which the major news sources all picked up both on the original story in the Chicago Sun-Times and on the interpretation that Michelle Obama's remark constituted an attack on Senator Hillary Clinton. Now for anyone who read the original story, there seems little doubt that Mrs. Obama's remark really was a thinly disguised dig at Hillary. The Sun-Times wrote:

NBC's Andrea Mitchell scolded Matt Drudge and other "Internet writers" for making much ado about nothing over Michelle Obama's "If you can't run your own house, you certainly can't run the White House," slam of Hillary Clinton. On the Wednesday "Today" show, Mitchell ran the aforementioned quote from Sen. Barack Obama's wife and then proceeded to wag her finger at Drudge and other "Internet writers" everywhere:

Imagine if a leading light of the right side of the blogosphere had the SEC come down on him like it just did on Jerome "Pump and Dump" Armstrong of MyDD and "Crashing the Gates" co-authorship fame (excerpt is from SEC announcement; HT Drudge, whose story refers to a New York Times blog story that is now behind the TimeSelect firewall):

August 7, 2007

On July 26, 2007, the Honorable John D. Holschuh, U. S. District Judge for the Southern District of Ohio, entered a Final Judgment as to defendant Jerome B. Armstrong ("Armstrong").

..... The Commission's Complaint, filed on April 14, 2003, alleged that beginning on March 6, 2000, Armstrong touted the stock of BluePoint Linux Software Corporation ("BluePoint") by posting unsubstantiated, favorable buy recommendations on the Raging Bull internet site. Armstrong posted over eighty such recommendations during the first three weeks that the stock of BluePoint was publicly traded. According to the Complaint, Armstrong praised BluePoint's investment value and encouraged investors who were experiencing trouble having their orders filled to keep trying. The Complaint further alleged that the promoters of BluePoint were secretly transferring stock in three other companies to Armstrong at prices below the then current market for those three stocks and that Armstrong made at least $20,000 by selling the shares he received from the promoters of BluePoint. The Complaint alleges that Armstrong did not disclose in his internet postings that he was being compensated for making the postings.

I'll bet there would be more coverage than this (UPDATE, 1 PM -- The same Google News search now shows a story at Watching The Watchers.org and still no Old Media coverage):

This one’s really tough to take on an empty stomach. So, you might want to eat something before proceeding.

In case you were concerned that the American public wasn’t being bombarded enough by grotesquely gooey gushings over Hillary Clinton by a fawning press corps, the Democrat presidential candidate has created a new website to assure her almost as much exposure as Paris Hilton.

Almost.

As reported by Politico (emphasis added throughout):

There’s going to be two installments of Fox News’ “1/2 Hour News Hour” Sunday evening, and after getting straight A’s for his first 100 days in office, President Limbaugh will be taking a well-deserved vacation.

In his absence, Vice President Coulter will run things with assistance from Secretary of State Drudge.

Those interested should see the video available here (h/t Ian at Hot Air).

*****Critical Update: Ian at Hot Air now has the OxyClinton video available wherein Laura Ingraham helps liberal women that are suffering from "Hillary Ambivalence Syndrome." This is the best routine of the evening.

Drudge mentions that during a live press conference in Baghdad, CNN "reporter" Michael Ware heckled John McCain. Video from the event is sure to follow. What will be interesting to see is who in the mainstream press covers it. Will it be covered on CNN? Will the press gossip blogs mention it? Or will this be swept under the rug as usual?

"Objective reporter" Michael Ware is no stranger to spouting his personal opinions. In an interview with Bill Maher he said "I've been given a front-row ticket to watch this slow-motion train wreck … I try to stay as drunk for as long as possible while I'm here … In fact, I'm drinking now.”

Two days ago a NewsBusters reader alerted me to some missing comments on a February 26 blog post by Evening News anchor Katie Couric at CBSNews.com.:

When I first saw this post on Couric's website last night (around 10:30 PM ET), I thought it was great that there were *12 pages* of comments appended to her post -- with every single one criticizing her and Al Gore for being limousine liberals and attacking the mistakes in her post. But when I looked at it again today (11:00 AM ET), all the comments have disappeared.

CBS's Greg Kandra addressed concerns about the missing comments in this February 28 post to "Couric & Co.":

[This was first posted on June 28, 2006] Since its inception almost a year ago, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann has devoted a regular segment on his Countdown show to attacking various people who have gained the Countdown host's derision. The segment, titled "Worst Person in the World," is a strong measure of the MSNBC host's overwhelming bias against conservatives as the segment has served as a launchpad for attacks against conservative figures and positions at a dramatically greater rate than against the left. As reported by the latest Media Reality Check, by a staggeringly lopsided 8 to 1 margin, Olbermann has targeted conservatives, sometimes with substantial venom, while hitting a comparatively miniscule number of liberals.

Two media tidbits today. Broadcasting & Cable magazine reports: "Count Larry King among Katie Couric’s fans. The venerable CNN host watches the new anchor of the CBS Evening News and thinks her ratings struggles have more to do with gender than with journalism. "It might still be hard for a woman to anchor the evening news," King says. "And that’s sad."

King also said it may take a major news event to help the former Today host shed her perky image: "Hurricane Katrina made Anderson Cooper. It could happen to Katie that way." (Larry slammed O'Reilly and Nancy Grace here.)

On Howard Kurtz's chat at washingtonpost.com, Kurtz was asked about the MSNBC v. Fox fight, specifically mentioning that O'Reilly has some liberals on his show (as foils, usually, he claimed), and Olbermann doesn't generally have conservatives on his show. A questioner asked:

We've been here before; the similarities are, well, eerie.

First, the sensational story in the closing weeks of an election, attributed, of course, to an anonymous source. A blogger, William "Wild Bill" Kerr of Passionate America, using clues gleaned from ABC's own website, reveals the name of one of the "victims," and the fact that he was not, as reported by ABC, under 18 at the time of the Instant Message exchange.

On Brian Ross' Blotter blog, someone quietly tries to change the wording of the Foley story to fit the new reality, but is tripped up by the Google cache.

Reports Drudge on himself:

ABCNEWS, WASH POST REPORTERS: 'DRUDGE RULES OUR WORLD'

Here they come...

In the stampede of books attempting to make their mark this season comes THE WAY TO WIN, by longtime political reporters Halperin and Harris.

The political director of ABCNEWS and the national politics editor of the WASHINGTON POST make it official in their new insider tome on DC politics and how it's played: The four words in every newsroom and campaign headquarters are: Have you seen DRUDGE?

MORE

Drudge is reporting that at a recent Roger Waters concert at Madison Square Garden, the former guitarist of the famed rock band Pink Floyd advertised some anti-Bush sentiments on a floating pig. For those unfamiliar with the band, when they were touring many years ago to promote their album “Animals,” during the song entitled “Pigs,” a huge, floating, inflatable pig was part of the props. Apparently, in this instance, the pig was graffitied with campaign propaganda (Update -- video here):

ROGER WATERS [PINK FLOYD] CONCERT TOUR HITS NORTH AMERICA AND NYC WITH FLYING PIGS, URGING DEM VOTES IN ELECTION, 'IMPEACH BUSH' WRITTEN ON REAR OF PIG FLOATING OVER AUDIENCE... One concertgoer writes: 'Seeing Bush's name written across the pig's arse made me howl'... The pig had graffiti. 'New Yorkers/Don't be led to the slaughter/Vote November 7'... another attendee played off the hit 'Another Brick in the Wall': ''We don't need no thought control,' even from Mr. Waters'...

This wasn’t the first time on this tour that Waters was so political:

UPDATE: Go to Matt Sheffield's open thread for current developments.

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Last night's report by Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs that a "Beirut burning" photo that was clearly and clumsily doctored with Photoshop editing tools had made it way onto the wires from Reuters has morphed into what must be considered a full-blown scandal that should, by rights, shake the news service and other "Mainstream" Media outlets to their very foundations, and force them to reexamine how they conduct and control their photojournalistic efforts around the world.

Consider just some of what has happened in the 24 hours or so since my NewsBusters post very early Sunday morning:

• Reuters has "dropped" the freelance Lebanese journalist after the image in question was shown to be doctored:

• The wire service offered perhaps the lamest excuse ever offered in the history of photojournalism for Adnan Hajj, the photographer involved --

With a huge hat tip to Drudge, the following is sure to make conservatives spit their coffee all over their computer screens:

CBSNEWS parent company VIACOM has began placing ads slamming its very own Katie Couric!

The company's DAILY SHOW rips EVENING-NEWS-to-be Couric, alleging "fake news" is on the way for viewers this fall when the former TODAY queen takes the anchor chair.

"It's all in good humor," said a CBS executive from New York.

"Everyone knows Ms. Couric is an outstanding journalist."

Thanks for the well-needed giggle on a Friday, Matt!

On May 22, 2006, Matt Drudge posted an item that said, "Burn: Gore & entourage took 5 cars to travel the 500 yards from hotel to screening of pic in Cannes ..." Keith Olbermann and lefty blog Think Progress jumped on Drudge, claiming that the story was false. Olbermann went as far as to say that Drudge is a "long-time schmuck" and was again "making stuff up" (via Expose the Left).

As it turns out, according to this Reuters "Notebook" report about Gore/Cannes, it appears Drudge's original claim was well founded. From Reuters (emphasis mine):

Gore and his team were seen driving the 500 metres or so from a hotel to the Cannes festival headquarters in several cars. The representative said that arriving at events like photocalls and news conferences in cars was normal practice in Cannes. And Gore walked the shorter distance from another hotel to the festival for the movie's screening.