Washington Post's Priest Mocks Bill Bennett's Gambling Problems --7/7/2006


1. Washington Post's Priest Mocks Bill Bennett's Gambling Problems
Hardened NBC watchers know to expect a shift toward the left when Andrea Mitchell is sitting in for Tim Russert on Meet the Press. On Sunday's big media roundtable, the topic was the administration's "war" on the press. When guest panelist Bill Bennett expressed outrage at Washington Post reporter Dana Priest's story last fall on the CIA's secret prisons for terror suspects in Europe, Priest went all personal on Bennett by saying her story did not break the law: "I mean, some people would like to make casino gambling a crime, but it is not a crime." (The liberal Washington Monthly broke the story in 2003 that Bennett had a bad habit of gambling away thousands of dollars on casino slot machines. The media glee was palpable.)

2. NYT's Keller: Admin Using Conservatives to Intimidate Journalists
After appearing on CNN last week and granting an interview with Washington Post reporter Howard Kurtz (who pondered the ferocity of what he considered the unwarranted conservative assault on the New York Times), Times Executive Editor Bill Keller on Sunday went to a sympathetic outlet, CBS's Face the Nation hosted by Bob Schieffer. Keller again defended his paper's revelation, of how the government is monitoring international financial transactions by terrorist operatives, by charging that the administration is manipulating conservatives in order to "intimidate" journalists: "Beating up on the New York Times is red meat for the conservative base. But, I mean, I don't think this is all politics, I think the administration's a little embarrassed. They -- this is the most secretive White House we've had since the Nixon White House, I think, by general acceptance, and I think they're a little embarrassed that they've had so much trouble holding on to their secrets. And making this kind of a clamor, I suspect, they hope will silence people who do talk to the press and maybe intimidate reporters." AUDIO&VIDEO

3. NBC Vet Blasts NYT: Like Giving Anne Frank's Address to the Nazis
So much for the loopy Olbermann-esque spin that it's just conservatives hoping to "stoke the base" who are distressed by journalists' leaking of government secrets. Veteran NBC News reporter Richard Valeriani charged that the New York Times's decision to publish a front-page story exposing a classified government program designed to track terrorist financing was "irresponsible," saying it smacks of "giving Anne Frank's address to the Nazis."

4. WashPost on Lay: Wanted Him Raped By a 'Panting Tattooed Monster'
Ken Lay deserves outrage for his corrupt tenure at Enron, but it's fair to say there is more outrage on the left, as liberals tried desperately to connect Enron to Bush in the 2002 election cycle. In Thursday's Washington Post, in a piece titled "Ken Lay's Last Evasion," Style section essayist Henry Allen channeled the rage that Lay cheated the world by dying with an overwrought revenge fantasy about how now "none of his victims will be able to contemplate that he's locked away in a place that makes the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel look like Hawaii; that he might be spending long nights locked in a cell with a panting tattooed monster named Sumo, a man of strange and constant demands..."

5. Citizenship Before Handouts? 'Threat to Millions,' Cries WashPost
When Republicans thought about how they could rein in federal spending, one idea was to curb how much federal largesse gets handed out to illegal aliens through fraudulent means. If you are appalled at the thought of denying government money to illegal aliens, money from hard-working taxpayers who play by the rules, then you might fit inside the newsroom at The Washington Post. Their front-page headline on Friday, June 30: "Medicaid Rule Called a Threat to Millions."

6. Walters Promotes Gore's 'Compelling, Horrifying' Global Warming
Barbara Walters, fresh from removing Star Jones from The View, took the ABC talk show back to what it does best, promoting liberal issues. Former Vice President Al Gore and his wife Tipper appeared on the Thursday, June 29 edition of the program. At the start, The View's announcer previewed the paranoid, frightened tone that the segment would take: "Former Vice President Al Gore and his wife Tipper are telling you about an inconvenient truth that could destroy the entire planet."

7. Mia Farrow Slips in Anti-Bush Line During Interview About Darfur
On the Wednesday, June 28 Hardball, actress Mia Farrow slipped in the old "Bush went to war for oil," canard during a discussion about Darfur. MSNBC's Chris Matthews asked Farrow what she wanted the American people and government to do about the crisis in Darfur to which Farrow demanded: "Support the relief agencies, and urge our leadership. There is, of course, a lack of political will. There is no oil in Darfur, only human beings." AUDIO&VIDEO

8. "Top Ten Signs the Supreme Court Doesn't Give a Damn"
Letterman's "Top Ten Signs the Supreme Court Doesn't Give a Damn."


Washington Post's Priest Mocks Bill Bennett's
Gambling Problems

Hardened NBC watchers know to expect a shift toward the left when Andrea Mitchell is sitting in for Tim Russert on Meet the Press. On Sunday's big media roundtable, the topic was the administration's "war" on the press. When guest panelist Bill Bennett expressed outrage at Washington Post reporter Dana Priest's story last fall on the CIA's secret prisons for terror suspects in Europe, Priest went all personal on Bennett by saying her story did not break the law: "I mean, some people would like to make casino gambling a crime, but it is not a crime." (The liberal Washington Monthly broke the story in 2003 that Bennett had a bad habit of gambling away thousands of dollars on casino slot machines. The media glee was palpable.)

[This item is adopted from a Sunday night posting, on NewsBusters, by the MRC's Tim Graham: newsbusters.org ]

Bennett blasted the New York Times: "We established a democracy, we, we opposed a king, we have a president of the United States. The founders, let me go back 200 years, James Wilson said, 'the press will be free. No prior restraint on the press. However, when they err, when they are irresponsible, they should be held accountable.' Now, you put Richard Clarke up against Lee Hamilton and Tom Kean. I'm sorry, Richard Clarke has a thing against this administration, that's pretty clearly known. Tom Kean said the details of a valuable program were lost."
Andrea Mitchell: "Well, he worked for a while in this administration."
Bennett: "Lee Hamilton said the same thing, Jack Murtha, these, again, are not cat's paws of this administration, begged The New York Times not to run this piece."

Mitchell soon reminded Priest: "Dana, let me point out that the Washington Post, your newspaper, was behind the others but also did publish this story. And a story you wrote last year disclosing the secret CIA prisons won the Pulitzer Prize, but it also led to William Bennett, sitting here, saying that three reporters who won the Pulitzer Prize -- you for that story and Jim Risen and others for another story -- were, 'not worthy of an award but rather worthy of jail.' Dana, how do you plead?"
Priest fired back: "Well, it's not a crime to publish classified information. And this is one of the things Mr. Bennett keeps telling people that it is. But, in fact, there are some narrow categories of information you can't publish, certain signals, communications, intelligence, the names of covert operatives and nuclear secrets.
"Now why isn't it a crime? I mean, some people would like to make casino gambling a crime, but it is not a crime. Why isn't it not a crime? Because the framers of the Constitution wanted to protect the press so that they could perform a basic role in government oversight, and you can't do that. Look at the criticism that the press got after Iraq that we did not do our job on WMD..."
Overall, the July 2 session put Bennett against the entire panel (including a feisty host in Mitchell, plus former New York Times columnist Bill Safire and Wall Street Journal political editor John Harwood) as everyone but Bennett asserted that there was no liberal politicking at the New York Times, and nothing but societal good done by the press. Mitchell even picked at Bennett as he pointed out that USA Today goofed up their story on telephone databases:
Bennett: "...the USA Today story about data mining. 'Oh, sorry,' they tell us on Friday, 'We maybe got that wrong. Our sources were wrong.'"
Mitchell: "Well, wait a second, the story wasn't wrong. What they apologized for is that one of the companies, or two of the companies-"
Bennett: "Two of the companies."
Mitchell: "-did not have contracts."
Bennett: "Big, big part of the story."
Mitchell: "But that the, but that the information was still being-"
Dana Priest: "The program was still valid."
Bennett: "But they, a big part of the story-"
Mitchell: "But the fundamental part of the story was-"
Bennett: "-big, big, big part of the story they got wrong. All right, check your facts when you're running a front page-"
Mitchell: "I have."
Bennett: "-when they're running front page, USA Today needs to check its facts."

Most annoying here was Mitchell's trip down memory lane with a pile of historical examples of politicians attacking the media -- Spiro Agnew in 1969, George H.W. Bush in 1988, Howard Dean in 2004, and Bush and Cheney last week -- as if it was a sorry, sorry tactic. Bill Safire exclaimed that a "get the media" politics is historically shameful: "I can say that it gives you a blip, it gives you a chance to get on the offensive against the, the darned media. But in the long view of history, it's a big mistake."

This is why people are angry at the media -- their complete arrogance in the face of criticism. They simply cannot take a challenge to their objectivity and their "news judgment." How many clips could Andrea Mitchell have shown of reporters arrogantly attacking Spiro Agnew on television, or Bush One or Two? Are Presidents never allowed to criticize the press? Is Andrea Mitchell entitled to stand out on the White House lawn for a decade or two and lob bombs, and no one gets to criticize her, ever?

NYT's Keller: Admin Using Conservatives
to Intimidate Journalists

After appearing on CNN last week and granting an interview with Washington Post reporter Howard Kurtz (who pondered the ferocity of what he considered the unwarranted conservative assault on the New York Times), Times Executive Editor Bill Keller on Sunday went to a sympathetic outlet, CBS's Face the Nation hosted by Bob Schieffer. Keller again defended his paper's revelation, of how the government is monitoring international


| |
More See & Hear the Bias

financial transactions by terrorist operatives, by charging that the administration is manipulating conservatives in order to "intimidate" journalists: "Beating up on the New York Times is red meat for the conservative base. But, I mean, I don't think this is all politics, I think the administration's a little embarrassed. They -- this is the most secretive White House we've had since the Nixon White House, I think, by general acceptance, and I think they're a little embarrassed that they've had so much trouble holding on to their secrets. And making this kind of a clamor, I suspect, they hope will silence people who do talk to the press and maybe intimidate reporters."

[This item is slightly altered from postings by Clay Waters, Editor of the MRC's TimesWatch.org site, which appeared Monday on TimesWatch: www.timeswatch.org And on our NewsBusters blog: newsbusters.org ]

First, on the July 2 show broadcast from CBS's Manhattan headquarters instead of from the usual Washington, DC studio, Keller made a ludicrous version of the sort of "you never cover the good news" argument similar to the ones the media have mocked in the past when coming from conservatives, pointing out that many times in the past the Times hasn't, in fact, compromised national security:
"I think this is about a lot more than just the banking story. I mean, since September 11th, editors have had to make some really, really tough choices about how we keep Americans informed about how their government is waging the war on terror. And there have been a lot of occasions where we have decided to withhold information. You don't hear about those. There have been some occasions where despite the pleas of the administration officials, we've gone ahead and published sensitive material after a long process of deliberation, and those tend to, you know, make officials angry."

Keller talked as if he were elected the executive of a nation, not a newspaper, when he explained how he judges whether a national security secret is worth exposing. The short answer is, give complete exposure the benefit of the doubt:
"I don't think the threshold test about whether you write about government waging the war on terror is whether they've done something that's blatantly illegal or outrageous. I think you probably would like to know what they're doing that's successful, as well. The question we start with is why would you not publish? And sometimes there's good reason.
"When lives are clearly at risk, we often hold back information. But this was a case where clearly the terrorists, or the people who finance terrorism, know quite well because the Treasury Department and the White House have talked openly about it, that they monitor international banking transactions. It's not news to the terrorists. The scope of the program and its evident successes and the questions about its oversight were news to voters and citizens."

(In Hugh Hewitt's useful analogy from CNN's Reliable Sources, "it's the difference between knowing that people are out to catch speeders in most cities and knowing where the speed traps and the radar and the cameras are.")

Schieffer asked: "You said that you always weigh the possibility of putting lives at risk and you generally would withhold information. Do you think any lives were put at risk? Because some are suggesting that they were by making this public?" Keller offered more excuses: "No. I don't, I don't think any lives were put at risk. You know, the government likes to have it both ways on these kinds of programs. They confide in us when they want to advertise the programs that are successful and then they rebuke us if we write about something that they would prefer we didn't write about. You know, it's interesting that Secretary of the Treasury John Snow, outgoing secretary, who rebuked us for writing the banking story, three years ago took a number of reporters, including one of ours, on a six-day tour of the Middle East, where they were given extensive briefings on sensitive details of how we monitor international financial transactions. They did that because they wanted us to write about their relentlessness in pursuit of terrorism and their successes. You know, so one man's breach of security is another man's public relations."

Asked if he regretted the story, Keller responded by casting criticism as a cynical conservative politics of intimidation, ignoring criticism of the Times' irresponsibility from the 9-11 commission and other sources: "I mean, you know, they're -- it's an election year, beating up on The New York Times is red meat for the conservative base. But, I mean, I don't think this is all politics, I think the administration's a little embarrassed. They -- this is the most secretive White House we've had since the Nixon White House, I think, by general acceptance, and I think they're a little embarrassed that they've had so much trouble holding on to their secrets. And making this kind of a clamor, I suspect, they hope will silence people who do talk to the press and maybe intimidate reporters."

NBC Vet Blasts NYT: Like Giving Anne
Frank's Address to the Nazis

So much for the loopy Olbermann-esque spin that it's just conservatives hoping to "stoke the base" who are distressed by journalists' leaking of government secrets (See: www.mrc.org ). Veteran NBC News reporter Richard Valeriani charged that the New York Times's decision to publish a front-page story exposing a classified government program designed to track terrorist financing was "irresponsible," saying it smacks of "giving Anne Frank's address to the Nazis." (Tip to Poynter's Jim Romenesko: http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=45&aid=103838 )

[This item, by Rich Noyes who used the MRC archive to locate a screen shot of Valeriani, was posted June 29 on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org ]

An excerpt of Valeriani's June 28 posting on the Huffington Post blog:

As someone who spent most of his adult life as a journalist, much of it covering national security affairs, I find the decision of The New York Times and other newspapers to publish the story about the Administration's money-tracing program to be really irresponsible.

The fault does not lie with the reporters.

It's their job to find out such things.

The fault lies with the editors who put what they perceive as their own self-interest or the interest of their newspaper ahead of the national interest.

Where was the so-called "public interest?" There was no compelling need for the public to know about this. The story itself acknowledged there was nothing illegal going on'€"only an anonymous acknowledgment that there was a "potential" for abuse.

This was show-off journalism, pure and simple....

After the take-over of the American Embassy in Iran in 1979, I found out that six American diplomats had escaped and were at large somewhere in Teheran. The Executive Editor at NBC Nightly News wanted to run the story, but fortunately, management was more sensible, and we did not report the story at the time. As someone pointed out, it would have been like giving Anne Frank's address to the Nazis.

Running the story about the money-tracing program is a version of giving Anne Frank's address to the Nazis.

END of Excerpt

For the posting in full: www.huffingtonpost.com

WashPost on Lay: Wanted Him Raped By
a 'Panting Tattooed Monster'

Ken Lay deserves outrage for his corrupt tenure at Enron, but it's fair to say there is more outrage on the left, as liberals tried desperately to connect Enron to Bush in the 2002 election cycle. In Thursday's Washington Post, in a piece titled "Ken Lay's Last Evasion," Style section essayist Henry Allen channeled the rage that Lay cheated the world by dying with an overwrought revenge fantasy about how now "none of his victims will be able to contemplate that he's locked away in a place that makes the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel look like Hawaii; that he might be spending long nights locked in a cell with a panting tattooed monster named Sumo, a man of strange and constant demands..."

[This item, by Tim Graham, was posted Thursday on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org ]

He opined in his July 6 tirade:
"But now that he's died of a heart attack in the luxury of his Colorado getaway while awaiting sentencing for his crimes, none of his victims will be able to contemplate that he's locked away in a place that makes the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel look like Hawaii; that he might be spending long nights locked in a cell with a panting tattooed monster named Sumo, a man of strange and constant demands; and long days in the prison laundry or jute mill or license plate factory, gibbering with anguish as fire-eyed psychopaths stare at him for unblinking hours while they sharpen spoons into jailhouse stilettos.
"He will not be ground into gray jailhouse paste by listening to the eardrum-scarring symphony of 131-decibel despair that is the Muzak of penitentiaries, by gagging on the dead prison air, by choking on the deader food, by watching the blue sky taunt him with freedom over the exercise yard, and by feeling his nervous system rent by the cruel grenades of memories -- explosions of nostalgia for the days when he knew he'd be swanning forever through the comfy laps and cool lawns of luxury and infinite possibility. Sweet Gulfstreams through sweet skies, the pools, the jewels, the Maybach limousines, a life in which he didn't just pimp his ride, he pimped the entire world as he knew it."

Allen acknowledged the "strange and vicious outrage" was not admirable:
"...so many people may well have responded to the news of Lay's untimely death by feeling cheated, by saying that death wasn't good enough for him, by sensing a frustrated craving for revenge burning in their backbrains like a fire in a tire dump.
"Is it possible that a micron below the surface of our liberal and enlightened beliefs lurks savagery? Was the French Enlightenment wrong about our essential goodness, and were the medieval churchmen right about our innate depravity?
"We should consider these things in days to come, so that Ken Lay may not have died in vain."

Yes, the churchmen are right. It's clear that the worst temptation of evil doings is the way they tease out the evil inside us. Funny how liberal essayists sometimes fail to ponder whether there's punishment after death. Allen concluded with less charity, confessing that "depraved as we may be," he wanted Lay's super-size crimes to be avenged with some super-size earthly torture before death.

For Allen's July 6 "essay" in full: www.washingtonpost.com

Citizenship Before Handouts? 'Threat
to Millions,' Cries WashPost

When Republicans thought about how they could rein in federal spending, one idea was to curb how much federal largesse gets handed out to illegal aliens through fraudulent means. If you are appalled at the thought of denying government money to illegal aliens, money from hard-working taxpayers who play by the rules, then you might fit inside the newsroom at The Washington Post. Their front-page headline on Friday, June 30: "Medicaid Rule Called a Threat to Millions."

[This item, by Tim Graham, was posted June 30 on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org ]

Reporters Susan Levine and Mary Otto explained that a Medicaid rule takes effect Saturday that requires proof of citizenship before Medicaid recipients collect benefits, even if they have long benefitted from Medicaid. The liberal sermonizing started in paragraph three, although there was not a single liberal label for any "advocate for the poor" anywhere in the piece. They're just "critics," not partisans or lobbyists:
"Critics fear that the provision will have the unintended consequence of harming several million U.S. citizens who, for a variety of reasons, will not be able to produce the necessary paperwork. They include mentally ill, mentally retarded and homeless people, as well as elderly men and women, especially African Americans born in an era when hospitals in the rural South barred black women from their maternity wards."

Levine and Otto went first to "critic" Andrea Sloan, a court-appointed guardian for some 40 D.C. residents. The conservative opinion in the piece gets this brief mention:
"Rep. Charles Whitlow Norwood Jr. (R-Ga.), one of the prime sponsors, decried 'the outright theft of Medicaid benefits by illegal aliens.'"

Levine and Otto did absolutely nothing to gauge the size or impact of illegal aliens adding to the deficit by fraudulently obtaining government benefits. The rest of the article reads like an impassioned editorial, providing only the views of people opposed to the new rule and decrying all the hardships it will cause. They didn't even provide a liberal label for that Hillarycare-promoting socialist, Ron Pollack of Families USA:
"'In the process of pandering on the illegal immigrant issue, members of Congress will do enormous harm to the American citizens who need help the most,' Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, said during a teleconference."

For the June 30 Washington Post article: www.washingtonpost.com

Walters Promotes Gore's 'Compelling,
Horrifying' Global Warming

Barbara Walters, fresh from removing Star Jones from The View, took the ABC talk show back to what it does best, promoting liberal issues. Former Vice President Al Gore and his wife Tipper appeared on the Thursday, June 29 edition of the program. At the start, The View's announcer previewed the paranoid, frightened tone that the segment would take: "Former Vice President Al Gore and his wife Tipper are telling you about an inconvenient truth that could destroy the entire planet."


| |
More See & Hear the Bias

[This item, by the MRC's Scott Whitlock, was posted June 29 on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org ]

Barbara Walters, described Mr. and Mrs. Gore this way:
"Former Vice President Al Gore and his wife Tipper have been forces of nature in the fight to save the planet. And there is a wonderful movie you all have to see called An Inconvenient Truth. And in it, the Vice President, the former Vice President, lays out a compelling, horrifying, but ultimately hopeful case for finding a way to save an Earth that's on the brink of disaster. And that means saving our lives and our children's lives."

The East Coast has seen a series of strong storms over the past few days. Walters wondered if, you guessed it, global warming could be the culprit. She asked, "Is all of this rain that we've had, is that tied to global warming? Is that what we're feeling?" While not saying yes, Gore gave a strong indication that he thought this was possible:
"The scientists will say it's difficult to say any particular weather event can, has a single cause. But they have predicted for years that global warming will be accompanied by larger downpours, because warmer air holds more moisture, and in this case the warmer oceans are feeding more moisture off the Atlantic into the northeast. And so, more of it falls at one time."

This apparently wasn't definitive enough for Walters. She questioned him again, "So maybe it is?"

Just in case the audience wasn't completely clear on where the ABC journalist stood on the issue of global warming, Walters briefly turned into film critic Roger Ebert and gave the movie her version of thumbs up: "We've known each other for a long time and it's just such a pleasure to have both of you on with us together. And we want to tell people, again, we don't endorse a lot of things. We talk about a lot of movies, but it's rare that we say to people, it's very important to see this."

Elisabeth Hasselback, the show's token conservative, gingerly attempted to disrupt the love fest with a few pointed questions. She asked Gore what kind of car he drives and mentioned that some scientists deem his theories alarmist. The former Vice President responded by saying, "You know, there are scientists who say that I've sort of given too rosy a view. There are those who have a much darker view." A few seconds later he used the phrase "planetary emergency." Later, he called global warming a "crisis." Walters described the problem as "horrifying" and stated that the planet is "on the brink of disaster." Well, it's a good thing we have Gore to give us the "rosy" version.

And of course, what Al Gore interview would be complete without the requisite media groveling about a 2008 presidential run? Co-host Joy Behar told the former Vice President that although she "loves Hillary," she would vote for Gore again. Barbara Walters cooed to the ex-VP and his wife, "Do you want to run? Do you want him to run?" Finally, the veteran ABC journalist closed the segment by informing the entire audience that they would all be getting a copy of An Inconvenient Truth, the book. Star Jones may be gone, but promoting liberal causes still has a home at The View.

Mia Farrow Slips in Anti-Bush Line During
Interview About Darfur

On the Wednesday, June 28 Hardball, actress Mia Farrow slipped in the old "Bush went to war for oil," canard during a discussion about Darfur. MSNBC's Chris Matthews asked Farrow what she wanted the American people and government to do about the crisis in Darfur to which Farrow demanded: "Support the relief agencies, and urge our leadership. There is, of course, a lack of political will. There is no oil in Darfur, only human beings."

[This item, by the MRC's Geoff Dickens, was posted June 29 on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org ]

The following is the fuller exchange between Farrow and Matthews:

Chris Matthews: "Well, tell us what the American people watching right now and what they're government can do. Individuals can't do much. What do they want or you want the government of the United States to do?"
Mia Farrow: "Well, I, what has to happen and happen fast is a U.N. peacekeeping force has to come in, a robust peacekeeping force of NATO quality. Twenty thousand strong is what Kofi Annan recommended in January, and air support as well. And no one is talking about, you know, military takeover. We are talking about a robust peacekeeping force to bring a much need security to the region, and safety for the nearly four million people that the World Food Program is now keeping alive. What you have is humanitarians risking their lives in difficult and dangerous circumstances. Their own safety is in no ways insured, and they are really sustaining this very vulnerable population. So what we can do is two things. We can support the humanitarian agencies. UNICEF, for example, has only 20 percent of what it needs to continue its work in Darfur, and other agencies are in similarly strapped straits. So support the relief agencies, and urge our leadership. There is, of course, a lack of political will. There is no oil in Darfur, only human beings."
Matthews: "Yeah."

"Top Ten Signs the Supreme Court Doesn't
Give a Damn"

From the June 29 Late Show with David Letterman, the "Top Ten Signs the Supreme Court Doesn't Give a Damn." Late Show home page: www.cbs.com

10. Opinion based on a coin flip so they could make 2:40 showing of "Superman Returns"

9. Tough to concentrate with Ruth Bader Ginsburg trying on bikinis

8. Spent last two days hearing arguments between Barbara Walters and Star Jones

7. All gavels make crazy "boing" sound

6. Recesses now take place at area Hooters

5. Chief Justice John Roberts demands to be called "J. Ro"

4. After heated debate, ruled 7-to-2 that Aerosmith does indeed rock

3. Upheld gay marriage, but only for really hot babes

2. For kicks they reversed an old decision and now Gore's President

1. Invited Anna Nicole Smith back to stand around and look slutty


# Today's CyberAlert, as I'm sure you noticed, is a catch-up edition with material from over the past week or so since my last CyberAlert sent eight days ago (CyberAlert e-mail subscribers received a "CyberAlert Special" on Wednesday with a scintillating re-cap of my trip to the Reagan Library/Museum and elsewhere). I'm now back from California and re-adjusting to East Coast time. It's barely 7am now out West.

-- Brent Baker