Note to the Media, the new political center is the Democratic Party. Just ask Chris Shays:

“Democrats basically grabbed the center and ran with it politically,” Mr. Shays said, adding that he would continue working with the Democrats provided they did not veer from the political center.

This lesson is one the Media needs to take to heart, so they stop acting like fools (see Lauer, Matt) whenever Matt Drudge tells them some nonsense.

Radio talk show host Don Imus joined the ranks of Mel Gibson and Grey's Anatomy star Isaiah Washington yesterday with his comments about the Rutgers women's basketball team which has 8 black members:

Imus was speaking with producer Bernard McGurk when the NCAA title game between Rutgers and Tennessee came up.

''That's some rough girls from Rutgers,'' Imus said. ''Man, they got tattoos ...''

''Some hardcore hos,'' said McGurk.

''That's some nappy headed hos there, I'm going to tell you that,'' Imus said.

Rehab, anyone? There's lots of calls for his firing, despite his apology.

''It was completely inappropriate, and we can understand why people were offended. Our characterization was thoughtless and stupid, and we are sorry.''

It wasn't just thoughtless and stupid. It was racist. MSNBC which airs his show in the morning provided this weak statement:

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There is nothing funnier to me than the spectacle of Matt Lauer talking about things he has no clue about. Their dicussion of Pelosi in Syria is hilarious:

LAUER: Vice President Cheney called Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Syria “bad behavior,” a Washington Post editorial on Thursday called it “counter-productive and foolish,” and op-ed in the Wall Street Journal this morning goes a step further and suggests her trip may actually have been a felony, that it may have violated something called the Logan Act. Tim, is this the way the Democrats wanted to get off the mark in terms of foreign affairs?

Dick Cheney, Fred Hiatt and the loony tunes WSJ Editorial Page making stupid and reckless accusations is the concern? I tell you what you need to be concerned about Matt - you should be concerned about looking like a GOP puppet. This is embarrassing journalistic malpractice. But let's face it, does anyone expect anything else from the likes of you? Of course not. Here's a secret Matt, no one takes you seriously. No one.

Mark Halperin has been on a downward career trajectory for the past seven months, starting with his incredible bootlicking of Bill O'Reilly, followed by his incredible bootlicking of Hugh Hewitt, followed by his falling out with his coauthor John Harris over his self abasing behavior with Fox, Hewitt and others. So it seems almost inevitable that now his invective for Democrats is not couched with any pretense of neutrality:

Although Halperin is political director of ABC News and founder of its online analysis column The Note, [Teresa] Heinz-[Kerry] blurted, "What would he know? Why would anyone listen to him?" when Charlie Rose interviewed the couple at the 92nd Street Y last week. On Wednesday, Halperin spoke at a Bernstein Global Wealth Management session and replied, "As Bill Clinton might say, 'That's like a pig calling someone ugly.'"

Very O'Reilly like of Halperin. I see a future Fox News Political Director in the making.

h/t Sirota.

Crooks and Liars has the video, you have to see it. Bill O'Reilly almost busted a gut.

GERALDO: "Cool your jets! It has nothing to do with illegal aliens…it has to do with drunk driving! Don't obscure a tragedy to make a cheap political point. It is a cheap political point and you know it!!"

Background from Oliver Willis:

"A young girl was tragically killed by a drunk driver. But this was not enough for O'Reilly. Instead, because the criminal was an illegal alien he added this incident to his ongoing crusade against the brown people. Luckily Geraldo was on the show and he - to his credit - called out O'Reilly's xenophobia for exactly what it was. This drove Bill O'Reilly insane. I was almost certain he was going to reach across the table and hit Geraldo."

The issue is drunk driving, not immigration -- as correctly noted by the victim's family and the town Mayor.

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Atrios calls Hiatt a wanker. Think Progress says Hiatt is "misleading." I think Hiatt is just the biggest idiot in Washington, DC. Absorb that statement for a moment. The biggest idiot in Washington. Why? Most recently, this:

. . . After a meeting with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in Damascus, Ms. Pelosi announced that she had delivered a message from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that "Israel was ready to engage in peace talks" with Syria. . . . Only one problem: The Israeli prime minister entrusted Ms. Pelosi with no such message.

What is the basis of Hiatt's statement? Seemingly this:

"What was communicated to the U.S. House Speaker does not contain any change in the policies of Israel," said a statement quickly issued by the prime minister's office.

Now is that a contradiction Mr. Hiatt? Are you saying Israel is not and was not ready to engage in peace talks with Syria? Is this true? Then what in the heck is wrong with Israel? They SHOULD be ready to engage in peace talks with Syria.

It is hard for some folks to say these things, but I will say it, Fred Hiatt is not a smart man. He has proven to be a disingenuous man but many credit him with an intelligence he simply does not possess. What he wrote in this editorial simply makes no sense.

I just received a copy of "The Italian Letter: How the Bush Administration Used a Fake Letter to Build the Case for the War in Iraq" by investigative journalists Peter Eisner and Knut Royce. I'm really looking forward to reading it.

The book traces the history of the forged letter that listed the sale of 500 tons of uranium from Niger to Iraq. It also explains how the letter played a critical role in the trial of Scooter Libby.

Among the books findings:

• A simple google search by the CIA on the "verbatim text" of the accord it received from the Italian Embassy on Feb. 5, 2002 could have changed history. The text is full of errors including incorrect names and dates. Had the CIA done a simple information search, the hoax would have been discovered and died then and there.

• There's another Scooter Libby story, and it's one that says Libby took the fall for Karl Rove. The authors also say Rove floated the idea to conservative supporters of dropping Dick Cheney from the 2004 ticket. Cheney found out and was far from pleased.

• Cheney had been told many times by intelligence operatives over a period of years there was no evidence of an Iraqi nuclear program or operational ties between Iraq and al-Qaeda.

Co-Author Peter Eisner discussed the book online at the Washington Post yesterday.

OUT Magazine has named the 50 most powerful gays in America.

#2 is CNN's Anderson Cooper.
#19 is the blogosphere's John Aravosis
#43 is actress Jodie Foster

New York Magazine has the entire list.

As I blast Time below, let me agree with Joe Klein (who is a darn good blogger imp), giving due props to the fantastic Edward Wong, and highlighting this heartbreaking quote:

And then, there's this epitaph for the war, from an unnamed U.S. Army sergeant, trying to console his anguished Captain:

“What can you do?...It’s their problem. This is their country, and they need to work it out among themselves. There’s nothing we can do about it.”

Bless the New York Times for its non-stop excellent coverage of this war.

When a Citizen Stengel makes you just about swear off the Madia, remember Edward Wong, John Burns, Dana Priest, Walter Pincus and the other great reporters that deserve our respect and admiration.

Via Josh Marshall, this is truly unbelievable:

the new issue of Time, on stands today, contains precisely zero stories on the [prosecutor purge] scandal. Nothing. As though it's not happening.

In the "Cybil" struggle over the soul of Time Managing Editor Richard Stengel, it appears Citizen Stengel defeated ME Stengel.

All kidding aside, this is simply inexcusable, horrible, embarrassing, firing offense journalism.

The final episodes of the Sopranos will begin to air on HBO on April 8. Fans of the Bada Bing might appreciate this story about two "accused members of a notorious New York crime family [who] turned a strip club into a training ground for mobsters."

Karl Rove had to play the part of a rapper at the White House Correspondent's dinner -- with David Gregory as a backup singer.

Think Progress has the video.