To read some newspaper accounts of last night’s White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, you’d never know Stephen Colbert was there. In fact, the press are treating Colbert much like they did the indications that president Bush was lying in the runup to the Iraq invasion: they’re pretending he doesn’t exist.

Stephen Colbert bagged a rare double as he left the White House Correspondents Association dinner bearing the hides of George Bush and the press.

In what seems to be a polling first, the president has appeared on a list of the top problems facing the country. A CBS News poll conducted earlier this month showed George W. Bush tied with energy prices and homelessness for the sixth spot.

UPDATE: One of the complaints net neutrality advocates have made is that institutional press outlets — who would also be affected by the demise of the principle — are paying little attention to the fight over the issue. While a very few major news organizations have noticed the unfolding battle, a Google News search shows that all but a handful of stories originate with blogs and trade magazines. Among the few newspapers with a reliably national audience to mention the issue is the LA Times, which takes a fairly comprehensive look in its technology section and mentions Save The Internet, one of the sites linked in this post.

Stories like the one in the Times are important for a couple of reasons. The obvious one is that people will read the story and perhaps take some interest in the issue. The slightly less obvious one is that politicians who favor the protection racket will note net neutrality’s institutional press debut and begin to realize they can’t fly under the radar forever. That’s a good thing.

Protection rackets are as old as commerce. You build yourself a nice little business, and along comes someone with a broadsword or a baseball bat or a gun, telling you it’d be a shame if something happened to ruin all your hard work. But help is at hand: for a percentage of your take, you can avoid any trouble. There won’t be a fire; there won’t be a strike; the goods and services you need will be delivered on time.

We’re starting out this week not with a blog but with an article on blogging in the Online Journalism Review entitled “Can Newspapers Do Blogs Right?” Written by OJR editor Robert Niles, the article was inspired by two recent blogging train wrecks in major newspapers, the Washington Post and the LA Times.

We’re starting out this week not with a blog but with an article on blogging in the Online Journalism Review entitled “Can Newspapers Do Blogs Right?” Written by OJR editor Robert Niles, the article was inspired by two recent blogging train wrecks in major newspapers, the Washington Post and the LA Times.

Gun control and Social Security may be third rails in US politics, but seniors seeking a better deal on prescription drugs are fair game. According to a story last month in the Boston Globe, US customs agents have increased seizures of mail order prescription drugs headed to the US from pharmacies in Canada. In response, some states are taking measures to protect their seniors from the federal government.

CIA director Porter Goss has issued new rules clamping down on dissent among former CIA employees whose writings are subject to CIA review. Goss, a Bush loyalist who headed the House intelligence committee before taking the reins at the CIA, has been accused of instituting a purge of administration critics within the agency, has apparently now set his sights on external critics as well.

Writer-director Paul Greengrass’ United 93 is a film of “men who fail.” This sounds judgmental; it isn’t intended to judge, merely to observe. Of all the flights hijacked on September 11, 2001, as notes the end crawl of the film, United Flight 93 was the only one among the four overtaken by terrorists that failed to make its target. And, the passengers who grouped to counter-attack the hijackers came close to succeeding, but they, too, failed.