The press corps accompanying President Bush to China for the Olympic opening ceremonies had their chartered Northwest Airlines plane delayed by Chinese officials for nearly three hours upon landing. Normally, the press accompanying the president are allowed to deplane and head straight to their hotels while government officials work out immigration issues. Not this time. Journalists were required to go through immigration one-by-one and have their bags screened individually. Officially, the White House blamed "logistical problems" for the incident. Yeah, like having the Olympics in China.

If you're an accountant, you're only as good as your client's last tax return that successfully hid the bulk of his income in an offshore shell company. If you're a journalist, you're only as good as your last report. Not that any of your past transgressions will never come back to haunt you, as they are for ABC News' Brian Ross. The newsman — who in 2001 reported the post-9/11 anthrax attacks might be linked to Saddam Hussein because tests showed traces of bentonite, a chemical linked to Iraq's supposed bio-weapons — has been facing harsh criticism from the likes of Salon's Glenn Greenwald, NYU's Jay Rosen, and the Center for Citizen Media's Dan Gillmor for failing to follow up his report — which was based on the information from three (or four?) "well-placed" government sources — with the acknowledgment that, well, he got everything completely wrong. And that his report might've helped build support for that Iraq war we're still in the middle of!

Nonsense!, says Ross, the upstanding journalist whose credibility has been turned into potato latkes.

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Tony Snow, the former White House press secretary who arrived from Fox News, and most recently was a correspondent for CNN, died this morning following a three-year battle against colon cancer. He was 53.

It's always in times of death that even one's enemies find as many good things to say about you as your friends. So while Roger Ailes, Rupert Murdoch, Brit Hume, and the Bush administration has accolades ready for the soundbite, so too do those who found him most appalling, and spent at least part of their careers attacking him.

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Glenn Greenwald, the Salon columnist, is usually scribbling down attacks on the GOP. But not always. Greenwald, who often gets trashed talked in pundit circles and at media parties, has a history of taking a break from Bush mudslinging to go on a tear against one media outlet or another.

Last year he did it to Time columnist Joe Klein ("For the sake of its own credibility, Time Magazine needs immediately to prohibit Joe Klein from uttering another word about the eavesdropping and FISA controversy."). He's also spit blood with Politico, criticizing its overly cozy relationship with the Drudge Report (perhaps because he covets it?) and effectively labeled it a "gossip rag masquerading as news organization." (Us too!)

To be sure, Greenwald's media crits are often based on his original premise: Playing nice with the right-wing makes you the devil. So anytime a media outlet violates this treatise, they're fair targets.

And so too, then, is Greenwald's latest victim: Keith Olbermann. The MSNBC host who was once a liberal hero is now — to Greenwald at least, though also to many others we've spoke with inside the industry — a double-talking liar. Worse: a centrist! And Greenwald has some pretty damning evidence.

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The American press corps isn't the only group anxious to see President Bush leave office in January — the Brits are twiddling their thumbs just as much. The Guardian's Bill Blanko, who refers to said American press corps as a "bunch of toadies," lays into the current leader of the free world, and his list of complaints is lengthy. Among them: "His sneering performance this week at his press conference with Gordon Brown in the Locarno Room (which lobby correspondents much prefer visiting for Foreign Office drinks parties) confirmed that he obviously loathes us. And after his surly verbal swipes at journalists, in between such horrendous Bushisms as "white-guy Methodists" (imagine the row if a British politician used a phrase like that), the feeling was mutual."

But most of all, what really bags Blanko is a little thing called alcohol — and the fact that the president doesn't drink any. And that the D.C. media doesn't drink enough.

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Scott McClellan's latest public service for his country – that would be writing the book What Happened – was so he could have a chance "to talk about the important truths," not "[help] the president's critics." Which, uh, he's so doing. On Keith Olbermann's show last night, the White House's least favorite summer author talked mostly about his upcoming testimony in the Valerie Plame/CIA leak case. But there was also a visit to the state of McClellan's book tour, which, as Olbermann helpfully reminds him, has been full of interviews that have "not been sympathetic."

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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.

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Uh, yes. And anyone who works in television news already knew this. So far, there are on-the-record guilty pleas from top people who were, at the time, working at NBC (Katie Couric) and MSNBC (Jessica Yellin, though she sort of backtracked). [NYT] Who's next? And don't look so shocked when they come forward.

CNN's Jessica Yellin, who on Anderson Cooper's show last night revealed she had felt pressure from above to "patriotize" her news reports when covering the Bush White House and the Iraq war, has now clarified her remarks as promised. For one, she clears up that she was talking about ABC, where she used to work, but MSNBC, of all places, where she "worked as a segment producer, overnight anchor, field reporter, and briefly covered the White House, the Pentagon, and general Washington stories." And also: It wasn't like Jeff Immelt was ringing her extension to tell her to draw hearts around Bush's photos.

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CNN's Jessica Yellin will explain, in a blog post, what she really meant last night when she told Anderson Cooper there was pressure from top network execs, at her old ABC job, to play nice with the Bush administration during the beginning of the Iraq war. [TVN, earlier] Did somebody shit where she didn't mean to?

Surprise! When that little war in Iraq was beginning, television news execs pressured producers not to air stories critical of the Bush administration. That was always sort of known, but like Fight Club, never talked about.

And then last night, CNN's Jessica Yellin, who used to get a paycheck from ABC News, told Anderson Cooper all about it: "The press corps was under enormous pressure from corporate executives, frankly, to make sure that this was a war presented in way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation and the president's high approval ratings."

Responded Cooper in exasperation (that she'd admit to it?): "You had pressure from news executives to put on positive stories about the president?" Video below.

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Scott McClellan's book hits next week, but it's already getting a huge PR push this week, thanks to its early circulation among media types. Oh, and the fact that he pulls a 180 and slams the Bush administration! (Except for that little, touching part where he says George Bush started crying when he fired him).

Naturally, everyone is looking to book McClellan. He's this week's big get! On the list of interview hopefuls? The big bad man, Bill O'Reilly, who was yammering on on his radio show about how Scott turned down his request to come on the show. Imagine!

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If nobody will put Baby in a corner, then Scott McClellan, who spent 2003-06 lying to the press for President Bush, certainly won't be seated there.

The man who watched his hairline gradually recede on live television is back from the shadows with a new book, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception, where he spells out how the Bush administration has screwed up everything it could get its hands on. Which is everything.

Handy bullet points from Politico, which eschewed the publisher's press embargo and bought its copy from a store, include:

• McClellan charges that Bush relied on “propaganda” to sell the war.

• He says the White House press corps was too easy on the administration during the run-up to the war.

• He admits that some of his own assertions from the briefing room podium turned out to be “badly misguided.”

• The longtime Bush loyalist also suggests that two top aides held a secret West Wing meeting to get their story straight about the CIA leak case at a time when federal prosecutors were after them — and McClellan was continuing to defend them despite mounting evidence they had not given him all the facts.

• McClellan asserts that the aides — Karl Rove, the president’s senior adviser, and I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the vice president’s chief of staff — “had at best misled” him about their role in the disclosure of former CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity.

All of which leaves us with just one question: He's charging only $27.95 for this masterpiece? We would not see Sex and the City three times for just one crack at this doozy.

A White House statement about the New York Times' editorial slamming President Bush for not supporting the G.I. Bill: "Once again, the New York Times Editorial Board doesn't let the facts get in the way of expressing its vitriolic opinions - no matter how misleading they may be."

Responds editorial page editor Andy Rosenthal: "We said Bush opposes the Webb bill. He opposes the Webb bill. I don't understand what's misleading about it."

Because the non-scandal surrounding Richard Engel's George Bush interview for NBC News doesn't seem to be quieting down anytime soon, let's re-examine the argument that White House counsel Ed Gillespie is making — that NBC edited the interview to push its lefty politics or something.

Notes WaPo's Dan Froomkin: "If Bush had actually explained what he thought Engel got wrong, then the editing might have come in for legitimate criticism. But all Bush did was vaguely and confusingly suggest that what he was calling appeasement was not taking the words [of enemies like Iran -- or Hitler --] seriously.' By no accepted definition does that amount to appeasement. But regardless, Bush's point was dutifully noted in what NBC aired."

So then what the hell was Gillespie complaining about?

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