[cross posted at NPR Check]
I'm not going to defend every action of the Chavez government in Venezuela - reports of harassment of journalists and the narrowing of press freedoms in Venezuela deserve some attention. But one has to wonder who sets the agenda at NPR and Juan Forero's obsessive focus on Venezuela - a focus that mirrors US government perspectives on Venezuela [similar problems exist with human rights reporting on Venezuela].

Nancy is one of the Good Gals. She really is. She's not perfect, no one is, but the fight she's fighting is the one we want to see. If you only make one call to a politician this year, be sure to say, "...and I strongly support Nancy Pelosi!" Seriously. Where Reid will let us down and speak to us in honied tongue, Nancy is the Real Deal. I offer this as the smallest glimpse into why She Totally Rocks:

As a strong advocate for open and transparent government, I am pleased that C-SPAN is expanding access with “Creative Commons” licensing to its extensive video coverage of federal government activities.

The House of Representatives is called the People’s House for a reason and as Speaker, I am committed to ensuring our government is fully accessible and transparent. This decision, along with our work to webcast committee hearings, is a solid start.

Phoenix Woman (and be sure to update your blogroll with the new address) asks some questions. Here are a few:

Q. Why, on the eve of war, did the Washington Post’s executive editor reject a story by Walter Pincus, its experienced and knowledgeable national security reporter, that questioned administration claims of hidden Iraqi weapons and why, when the editor reconsidered, the story ran on Page 17?
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Q. Why did the Post, to the “dismay” of the paper’s ombudsman, bury in the back pages or miss stories that challenged the administration’s version of events? Or, as Pincus complained, why did Post editors go “through a whole phase in which they didn’t put things on the front page that would make a difference” while, from August 2002 to the start of the war in March 2003, did the Post, according to its press critic, Howard Kurtz, publish “more than 140 front-page stories that focused heavily on administration rhetoric against Iraq”?
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Q. Why did Michael Massing’s critique of Iraq-war coverage, in the New York Review of Books, conclude that “The Post was not alone. The nearer the war drew, and the more determined the administration seemed to wage it, the less editors were willing to ask tough questions. The occasional critical stories that did appear were…tucked well out of sight.”