David Gregory, the NBC News White House correspondent and MSNBC show host, has ample reason to have it in for Scott McClellan: The former White House press secretary regularly misled the press and Gregory, including in this famous example at left, and this awesome confrontation, and followed Bush administration's orders to play rough with 30 Rock's news operations.

But now it's McClellan who's fighting back against Gregory. It his book proposal for What Happened, McClellan promised to take a look at the liberal media, with special attention to Gregory: "I came to know and respect those who were assigned to the White House beat. They are solid professionals, but rarely scrutinized or put under the microscope. I will take a look at notable personalities in the White House Briefing Room, including David Gregory and Helen Thomas. I anticipate an entire chapter about the former."

And with McClellan's manuscript hitting bookstores, and his making the rounds on all the talk shows, including NBC's (and tonight, Bill O'Reilly's), it's time for Gregory to lash back at his foe.

McClellan's biggest charge against the media was its lax approach to Bush & Co. pushing the Iraq war on the American people, and the press' failure to ask the hard questions. (You know, the questions some guy named McClellan was responsible for answering.) Had the media not so royally screwed up, argues McClellan, perhaps we wouldn't be billions of dollars and thousands of lives into a ridiculous war.

Gregory doesn't see it that way.

He here is on MSNBC, defending his actions: "I think he's wrong. Uh, he makes the same kind of argument a lot of people on the left have made. Uh, I tried not to be defensive about it. I've thought a lot about this over a number of years. And I disagree with that assessment. I think the questions were asked. I think we pushed, I think we prodded. I think we challenged the president… If there wasn't a debate in this country, the American people should think about 'why not.' Where was Congress, where was the House, where was the Senate, where was public opinion about the war. What did the former-president believe about the pre-war intelligence… The right questions were asked."