Cursor's Media Patrol - June 23, 2005

Some extracts:

White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove emerged from 'Bush's jammed PR machine' to declare that "Liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers," while "Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war."

Sen. Frank Lautenberg described Rove's comments as "political trash talk," but White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said Rove was just "telling it like it is."

The Washington Post reports that the Pentagon is working to create a national database of all students over 16 "to help the military identify potential recruits," using a contractor with no published privacy policy.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says it has awarded Halliburton a new contract worth up to $1.25 billion to "support U.S. troops" in Europe, while the Pentagon is accused of acting as if "it has something to hide" in "withholding information about Halliburton's disputed billing under a $2.5 billion contract."

Dana Milbank shows more empathy for the "Denver Three" than he did for the congressional 30. Scroll down for a "Countdown" interview with Milbank and one of the 'three.'

Monitoring the cable news channels over 16 hours to see what passes for news, CJR Daily found that "Fox News was the place for anything Natalee Holloway- or Sen. Dick Durbin-related. Those two subjects received 10 times more coverage than the top news stories of the day." Earlier: Terri Schiavo autopsy DOA on FOX.