Hard to Find Blame?
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}And now the most absorbing two minutes in television, the latest from the wartime grapevine:
Hard to Find Blame?
The 9/11 commission hearings this week have produced evidence of blame reaching back well into the Clinton years, but you'd have a hard time knowing that from the European press.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}London's Telegraph says -- "Bush 'slow to act on bin Laden.'"
The Scotsman says -- "Bush defends U.S. inaction over Al-Qaeda."
And the Paris-based International Herald Tribune says -- "9/11 panel cites warnings to Bush." That story, by the way, was from the New York Times -- which owns the Herald Tribune... but the Times headline read "Bush and Clinton Aides Grilled by Panel."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}How Many Times?
Officials from President Bush's re-election campaign have criticized John Kerry for -- "vot[ing] 350 times to raise taxes during the course of his career."
But, in fact, Kerry has voted "yea" on fewer than half that many actual tax increases. Bush officials included in their number, votes against tax cuts, votes to reduce proposed tax cuts, and votes against repealing tax increases.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}President Bush and his campaign officials are now toning down their criticism, instead saying Kerry voted 350 times -- "for higher taxes."
Wedding Banned
Benton County, Oregon, has decided that -- instead of trying to determine the legality of gay marriages -- it will just ban marriage, any type, altogether. County Commissioner Linda Modrell says -- "We need to treat everyone ... equally."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}She says the ban will last until the gay marriage debate is settled by a court. Meanwhile, the ombudsman at the Portland Oregonian newspaper says some journalists at his paper believe -- "covering the views of opponents of homosexuality causes the harm of endorsing prejudice, and will especially appear biased and discriminatory when looked back on 10 years from now."
Ownership Omitted Due to 'Oversight'
Remember we told you how CBS' "60 Minutes" devoted much of its Sunday broadcast to a new book by former Bush and Clinton aide Richard Clarke, but failed to mention that CBS and the book's publisher, Simon and Schuster, are part of the same company, media giant Viacom?
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Well, "60 Minutes" executive producer Don Hewitt, quoted by the New York Post, now says that was just a -- "oversight."
— FOX News' Michael Levine contributed to this report