I'm amazed that Bush bothered to take the filter off the lens, if even for a moment. And I'm more amazed that it wasn't edited out. Strange.

The question, of course, is the problem here. Not the answer. I'm puzzled that Fox aired the question in light of the response.

it may be unfair to judge Wallace and Gannon on the basis of a single question each. In general, though, cable news has ceased to be journalism, and I think that's okay. If you're a conservative, or what passes for a conservative these days, you can get your views on the world confirmed by watching Fox News; if you're a Democrat, especially an Obama fan, you can do the same by watching MSNBC. If you want to watch something a little less biased, you can watch CNN. Most of their reporters and analysts aren't terribly bright, though (Wolf in particular is clueless), so I don't see the point. The problem with 24-hour news networks is that they're inevitably going to be spread pretty thin. If you don't like it, read a paper. That's what I do.

When faced with a problem, don’t deny involvement; just chance the definition of the problem so that it no longer exists.

Alex Gibney, the director of “Taxi to the Dark Side” (excellent documentary), issued a press release last week that repeated the oft heard Bush phrase “We do not Torture”, because (as Gibney states) “they define it out of existence”. The Bush team takes their torture definition from the John Yoo (DOJ) January 2002 memo which defined anything short of Boiling-in-Oil as being okay.

Also last week, Dick Cheney reiterated the standard Administration torture talking point:

“The United States is a country that takes human rights seriously. We do not torture – it’s against our laws and against our values”.

In the real world, of course, this is a lie. However, in the Orwellian world that has been strategically crafted within the Bush bubble, this is a basic truth. The same holds true for the “fact” that they are within their legal bounds to suspend habeas corpus at will. As with torture, this right was “defined” into existence by the same memo(s) that were being written by the DOJ legal staff in 2002.

Think about it. Bush has created a way to legally (in his mind) justify any action he takes, simply by having a sycophantic lawyer in the Department of Justice write a memo that re-defines the action to fit his desired result. The Telecom immunity issue is another case-in-point. Last week Kit Bond said, on the floor of the Senate, that the Telecom’s unwarranted surveillances were, in fact, legal because of the rights given to the president through Section 2 of the September 2001 “Authorization for the Use of Military Force”. As strange as it may seem, there must be a DOJ memo that trumps the Fourth Amendment by re-defining the Section 2 “all necessary and appropriate force” phrase to include the right to spy on American citizens.

Taken a step further, the DOJ could (in the case of any national emergency) write a memo creating a Bush Faux Law that would allow the Administration to do “anything” under a new definition of “necessary and appropriate force.” This could effectively allow the following principles to be “defined” out of existence:

• The Bill of Rights

• Presidential Elections

• The Constitution of the United States of America

Anything is possible with these guys.

The Right makes the assumption that anyone who gets wronged, deserves it.

They fail to understand that the problem is NOT that the prez is torturing terrorists (though some ardent human rights supporters would still have a problem with that), the problem is the president is torturing SUSPECTS. If he suspends the rights of suspects, then no one has any rights.

America is supposed to stand for something. It might stand for not torturing anybody, that's debatable depending where you stand on the Left-Right spectrum. However it DEFINITELY does NOT stand for torturing people whom the gov't claims are suspects of terrorism, and they can't be questioned on the evidence because of 'National Security' (da Da DA!)

Are you going to do a piece on MSNBC groveling before Hillary re: pimping? Now THAT is obsequious behavior.

If the Wallace interview was anything like Bush's "press conferences," the question was submitted, approved and the response scripted in advance.

The framing and response simultaneously allowed: a) Bush's critics to be portrayed as overly concerned with "the rights of those who want to kill us," and b) let Bush provide a rational-sounding, "above-the-fray" presidential response.

Does anyone really think that's the way Bush and his nomenklatura describe their critics behind closed doors?

It was a two-fer. And today's corporate media -- especially Fox -- is only too happy to whore themselves for a little face time.

It was not two weeks ago that I had told a friend that I thought that Chris Wallace was one of the best of the Sunday talk hosts. This article drops him down into Russert territory.

How did we get from Mike Wallace to Chris Wallace?

President Bush said: "Whatever we have done was legal, and whatever decision I will make will be reviewed by the Justice Department to determine whether or not the legality is there."

Yup. That covers it. If you don't like it, listen to his appointee, or the only news that President even bothers with anymore, FAUX.

How can anybody even listen to this guy? Oh, wait! A third of America still believes...

The question -- and the answer -- were hand-written by the White House. That is as obvious to me as the cold weather outside.

It's basically a variation on the old chestnut thrown to actors: "Just how fantastic was it to work with Famous Director X?" It gives an actor a chance to seem very sage and knowing, while saying nothing at all outside the "frame" of "it was fantastic".

To the "base", Dubya's response screams "See! It's perfectly safe to leave these decisions with the Great Leader! Look how statesmanlike and respectful he is even to his surrender-monkey opponents!"

Not embarrassment -- just following the script.

So too, Chris Wallace is less "failed journalist" more "reading what they gave him that morning".

So you give both of them, Glenn, simultaneously, not enough credit, and too much!