Cursor's Media Patrol - 10/24/05

Reporting that "Three massive vehicle bombs exploded Monday near the Palestine Hotel ... killing at least 20 people," the AP quotes Iraq's national security adviser as saying it was a "very clear" effort to take over the hotel and take foreign and Arab journalists as hostages.

'Breaking Ranks,' Brent Scowcroft tells the New Yorker that "The real anomaly in the Administration is Cheney. I consider Cheney a good friend -- I've known him for thirty years. But Dick Cheney I don't know anymore." Asked about the differences between George W. Bush and his father, Scowcroft said: "I don't want to go there."

The article isn't available online, but in a Q & A with the author, Hullaballo's Digby notices "some spanking new jargon bubbling up into the mainstream," including, "the term 'conservative' has been surgically removed from the failed ideology of neoconservativism," with neocons now being portrayed as 'Liberals With Guns.'

Assuming that "the inept and corrupt al-Jaafari government ... has no allies left in the Bush Administration," writes Joe Klein, "wouldn't it be deliriously weird if Ahmad Chalabi turned out to be the top guy after all?"

A Knight Ridder investigation of the Pentagon's "prime vendor" program, which allows middlemen to set their own prices, finds that "it's costing taxpayers 20 percent more than the old system."