By Steve Clemons

I had to pause between a set of non-stop meetings today after briefly seeing an email from the Council on Foreign Relations highlighting Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s complaint about the “globally hostile media environment.” He lamented that today’s terrorist arsenal includes “e-mail, Blackberries, instant messaging, digital cameras and Web logs, or blogs.

I’ve seen Mary Matalin in a photo on the cover of the Washington Post walking with Cheney the day after news hit that the Vice President shot his hunting acquaintance. Matalin’s even been out in the press taking a few shots for Cheney. Karl Rove is in the Cheney shooting stories.

In my view, the law says “No”. . .but I have little doubt Alberto Gonzales and his minions will construct a rationale that says otherwise. But I have run across some interesting information — and have some questions that we should all pose to those at the helm in the White House.

First of all, congratulations to Fox News’ Brit Hume on this super, hard-hitting, ground-breaking interview with Vice President Cheney (not). Just for fun, imagine Hume interviewing Al Gore if Gore had shot someone and hidden the news for a day — and stuck in the material that he could unilaterally declassify information.

I’ve been totally socked in because of a line of non-stop meetings, but big stuff is up. Cheney talks about his shooting shame. However, More Abu Ghraib photos punctuate our national shame. In its exclusive interview with Cheney on the hungting accident, Fox News should have asked Cheney what torture looks like to him.

One of the traditions that The Washington Note has established is that I’m happy to meet aspiring bloggers as well as policy and political junkies — and of course TWN loyal readers — at cool coffee shops (or pubs or saloons as the case may be) on my trips. Nothing too organized.

I was able to break away from my obsessive interest in the Cheney hunting accident and tax evasion scandal to hear my colleague, Nir Rosen. speak about Iraq’s unacknowledged but significantly expanding civil war.

Paul Hackett had a Howard Dean-like organically grown following out there that saw his type of candidacy as the sort that would transform the sclerotic Democratic Party into something more real and relevant to progressives. Unfortunately, he’s announced that he’s out of the race.

I know it’s a big story, but I don’t like it. Everyone wants to talk about who Cheney shot, why he shot him, what it ALL means. . .

An important and provocative report has just been published that suggests that Iran was the target of much of Valerie Plame’s covert investigative work and that outing her identity had far worse consequences than has thus far been acknowledged.