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If, as he ponders the Threat Matrix at his daily intelligence briefing, Cheney really sees himself as a modern Achilles or Hector on the plains at Troy, he is not just being grandiose. Cheney is often lauded as that rare No. 2 who, having no political ambition for himself, can give his all to the president. But Cheney's aloofness from the ebb and flow of politics and public opinion has apparently dulled his senses in a way that is not helpful to his boss, who has been busy lately defending his administration from criticism that it was badly out of...

They were loyal conservatives, and Bush appointees. They fought a quiet battle to rein in the president's power in the war on terror. And they paid a price for it. A NEWSWEEK investigation. Feb. 6, 2006 issue - James Comey, a lanky, 6-foot-8 former prosecutor who looks a little like Jimmy Stewart, resigned as deputy attorney general in the summer of 2005. The press and public hardly noticed. Comey's farewell speech, delivered in the Great Hall of the Justice Department, contained all the predictable, if heartfelt, appreciations. But mixed in among the platitudes was an unusual passage. Comey thanked "people...

Feb. 6, 2006 issue - James Comey, a lanky, 6-foot-8 former prosecutor who looks a little like Jimmy Stewart, resigned as deputy attorney general in the summer of 2005. The press and public hardly noticed. Comey's farewell speech, delivered in the Great Hall of the Justice Department, contained all the predictable, if heartfelt, appreciations. But mixed in among the platitudes was an unusual passage. Comey thanked "people who came to my office, or my home, or called my cell phone late at night, to quietly tell me when I was about to make a mistake; they were the people committed...

Jan. 9, 2006 issue - The talk at the White House in the days and weeks after 9/11 was all about suitcase nukes and germ warfare and surprise decapitation strikes. Every morning, as they crossed West Executive Drive on their way to work in the West Wing, Bush administration staffers recall seeing a plain white truck with a galvanized metal chimney. Sensors sniffing for pathogens or radioactivity, they guessed, though they couldn't be sure. Like just about everything else at that spooky time, the purpose of the truck was a secret.

It's time for the 18th annual Media Research Center's awards for the most biased, manipulative or downright goofy quotes from liberals in the "mainstream" media. I'm honored to serve, once again, on MRC's distinguished panel of conservatively biased judges. Here are some of the highlights from among the winners and runners-up of Best Notable Quotables of 2005:

Jan. 9, 2006 issue - The talk at the White House in the days and weeks after 9/11 was all about suitcase nukes and germ warfare and surprise decapitation strikes. Every morning, as they crossed West Executive Drive on their way to work in the West Wing, Bush administration staffers recall seeing a plain white truck with a galvanized metal chimney. Sensors sniffing for pathogens or radioactivity, they guessed, though they couldn't be sure. Like just about everything else at that spooky time, the purpose of the truck was a secret. Such chilling sights are not likely to inspire thoughtful...

Newsweek: Bush Most 'Isolated' President George W. Bush may be the most isolated president in modern history, at least since the late-stage Richard Nixon, write Assistant Managing Editor Evan Thomas and Senior White House Correspondent Richard Wolffe in the December 19 issue of Newsweek. Lately, there are some signs that the White House is trying to dispel the image of the Bush Bubble (or Bunker), although Congressman Jack Murtha may disagree. When Murtha tried to write George W. Bush with some suggestions for fighting the Iraq war, as he had done for the president's father, the congressman's letter was ignored...

Sept. 19, 2005 issue - It's a standing joke among the president's top aides: who gets to deliver the bad news? Warm and hearty in public, Bush can be cold and snappish in private, and aides sometimes cringe before the displeasure of the president of the United States, or, as he is known in West Wing jargon, POTUS. The bad news on this early morning, Tuesday, Aug. 30, some 24 hours after Hurricane Katrina had ripped through New Orleans, was that the president would have to cut short his five-week vacation by a couple of days and return to Washington....

The grieving room was arranged like a doctor's office. The families and loved ones of 33 soldiers killed in Iraq or Afghanistan were summoned to a large waiting area at Fort Bragg, N.C. For three hours, they were rotated through five private rooms, where they met with President George W. Bush, accompanied by two Secret Service men and a photographer. Because the walls were thin, the families awaiting their turn could hear the crying inside. President Bush was wearing "a huge smile," but his eyes were red and he looked drained by the time he got to the last widow,...

Aug. 22, 2005 issue - The grieving room was arranged like a doctor's office. The families and loved ones of 33 soldiers killed in Iraq or Afghanistan were summoned to a large waiting area at Fort Bragg, N.C. For three hours, they were rotated through five private rooms, where they met with President George W. Bush, accompanied by two Secret Service men and a photographer. Because the walls were thin, the families awaiting their turn could hear the crying inside. President Bush was wearing "a huge smile," but his eyes were red and he looked drained by the time he...

The International Committee of the Red Cross announced that it had provided the Pentagon with confidential reports about U.S. personnel disrespecting or mishandling Qur'ans at Gitmo in 2002 and 2003. VanNatta recounted that in 2002, the inmates suddenly started yelling that the guards had thrown a Qur'an on or near an Asian-style squat toilet. The guards found an inmate who admitted that he had dropped his Qur'an near his toilet. According to VanNatta, the inmate then was taken cell to cell to explain this to other detainees to quell the unrest. But the incident could partly account for the multiple...

May 23 issue - By the end of the week, the rioting had spread from Afghanistan throughout much of the Muslim world, from Gaza to Indonesia. Mobs shouting "Protect our Holy Book!" burned down government buildings and ransacked the offices of relief organizations in several Afghan provinces. The violence cost at least 15 lives, injured scores of people and sent a shudder through Washington, where officials worried about the stability of moderate regimes in the region. advertisement The spark was apparently lit at a press conference held on Friday, May 6, by Imran Khan, a Pakistani cricket legend and strident...

Evan Thomas of Newsweek was one of the few journalists who admitted that the mainstream media wanted John Kerry to win. He said media bias was worth as many as 20 million votes for Kerry. But that doesn't mean that Newsweek is free of liberal bias. We picked up a copy of the January 10 issue and were astounded by the examples of bias contained therein. Page 5 featured a "Conventional Wisdom" segment that criticized the President for vacationing and then "taking three days" to address the Tsunami disaster. That's a lie. The President addressed the problem on the day...

Lame Ducks and New Canucks When I was young, some thousands of my countrymen fled to Canada in order to avoid fighting the evils of communism in a distant land. More than thirty years later, some thousands of liberals are planning to ascend to the Great White North to avoid fighting the evils of conservatism in their own back yard. Although I’m not sure that flight is the proper response to the recent election results, I wish them a swift transition to a land more amenable to their sensitive, pacifistic dispositions and one that will accommodate their rampant Francophilia. Some...

...There is no doubt that John Kerry showed great skill at embracing deeply contradictory positions, but that does not make him unusual; all politicians have mastered the art of self-contradiction. What was remarkable in this election is that one candidate, President Bush, never changed: He said what he meant and meant what he said. If the Democrats could not appeal to the moral values of people, that fact must have been lost on the 48% of the voters who supported Sen. Kerry.... I am just as mystified by Mr. Friedman's lament that "Christian fundamentalists" are ruining his America by fostering...

See comments and synthesis below, which is NOT a copy-paste of the series of articles, but an outline to them with links.

"Nov. 15 issue - In the winter of 2003-04, Jenna Bush, one of president Bush's 22-year-old twin daughters, dreamed that her father lost the election. Jenna had never before shown any interest in politics or much desire to get involved in her father's campaigns. But now she, along with her sister, Barbara, volunteered to help their father get re-elected. The president was overjoyed to have the girls on the campaign bus, recalled his wife, Laura. His mood lightened, to the relief of his handlers, who had been anxiously discussing their candidate's surliness and impatience." and "Nov. 15 issue - John...

MATTHEWS: Well, Evan, if that‘s the case, if voters are going into the booth next Tuesday or have already voted for the president and the vice president based upon their belief that there was a strong functioning relationship between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein in terms of obviously 9/11, [...Saddam was supporting, funding, and harboring terrorists -- that makes him a terrorist (see Bush doctrine)...] and that there‘s a clear-cut case that there was WMD in that country at the time we went in, [...no one can tell what Saddam did with explosives at Al Qaa Qaa, what else did...

October 10, 2004 -- Mainstream media bias against Republican presidental candi dates is a fact of American po litical life. Rarely, though, has this been so evident as this year; the establishment media seems to have become a wing of John Kerry's campaign. One unusually candid member of the liberal media mafia admitted as much during the Democratic convention. Evan Thomas, assistant managing editor of Newsweek, offered this confession on media bias on the PBS program "Inside Washington." "The media, I think, wants Kerry to win. And I think they're going to portray Kerry and Edwards — I'm talking about...

...The election coverage from Big Media has been unusually partisan this time around. As Newsweek's Evan Thomas famously remarked: "Let's talk a little media bias here. The media, I think, wants Kerry to win... that's going to be worth maybe 15 points." ...Mr. Kerry, as even many Dems are admitting, is a weak candidate. But the big media advantage doesn't seem to have turned out to be as big as some thought. ...In a Boston Herald ...Mr. Kerry wrote: "On more than one occasion, I, like Martin Sheen in 'Apocalypse Now,' took my patrol boat into Cambodia...." But the story...