Another daffy news day.

Today, July 19, was a big news day. Obama announced that the so-called Gang of Six had come to an agreement about a deficit-reduction plan. That's big. Rupert Murdoch, his son James and Rebekah Brooks appeared before Parliament today to explain the recent phone hacking scandal. That's big. So what does the ABC Evening News lead with? The man who tried to throw a pie in Rupert's face. A nothing incident. What the hell is wrong with America's news networks? To make it worse they practically hailed Rupert's wife Wendi Deng as a heroine for rushing to her husband's defense. What wife wouldn't if her husband was worth billions of dollars and not that far from the grave? The second fabulously covered story was the heat wave that's enveloping most of the country. Once again ABC (and I'm sure all the other networks) stressed the oppressive heat and then showed us sufferers out in the sun. If it's so damned hot, what they hell don't these people doing move to the shade or go inside? Does anyone remember when news was news?

Note: It is now July 20th, and the world is still falling apart. But at this moment MSNBC is doing extensive coverage on Wendi Deng whose rescuing Rupert from a pie thrower is apparently equal to saving passengers from the Titanic. Murdoch's mother it seems didn't believe that this slender, attractive Oriental was in love with her grumpy, unattractive, ramshackle, elderly son and considered Wendi a designing women, but the news has agreed to see her as nothing less than the bravest, most intelligent woman of the 21st century. At least for this news cycle. I wonder what else happened in the world today.

Note: It is now July 21st and Wendi Murdoch's meaningless assault on the pie thrower is still in the news. It was a special feature on ABC News and even MSNBC, whom I usually admire,made several earlier references. But interestingly tonight on Hardball, Michael Smerconish, filling in for Chris Matthews, posed the question as to whether the pie-throwing was, in fact, staged by Murdoch himself to deflect attention from his testimony and focus on his half-his-age wife. Possible. Murdoch certainly is canny enough to know the lazy and stupid news media would leap on such a story and gladly put all of his crimes in the background.