The Interior Department inspector general found no evidence that Karl Rove or other White House operatives interfered in the Klamath Basin water conflict for political gain last year.

Rove's comments on the ongoing Klamath water battle came in a meeting, and without a tape recording of the comments or some other solid written evidence, it is extremely difficult to prove "political pressure." Indeed, the nut paragraph in the letter the IG sent to Senator John Kerry (who called for the investigation last year before he became the Democratic nominee) seems to be:

"However, we conclude that the (Interior) Department conducted itself in keeping with the administrative process, that the science and information utilized supported the department's decisions, and that no political pressure was perceived by any of the key participants," Devaney's letter said.

Perception is always in the eye of the beholder, and your perception better be damn sure if you're going to testify in an IG investigation against the most powerful political operative in the federal government about an important issue in a swing state in an election year.

Happy New Year.

In 2002, I worked on a documentary investigating the American meat industry for the PBS series Frontline. After talking to a lot of experts about Mad Cow and the threat of BSE, we concluded that the real story was about the threat from food borne illness like e coli and salmonella, which kill an estimated 5000 people a year in the United States, not the threat from BSE, which killed about 150 in Great Britain over the last ten years.

The consolidation of the American meat industry, and its determination to vigorously fight any regulation that might impact their low margin business, was, and is, the real story. The name, Mad Cow, and the endless footage of that one cow staggering around drunkenly, provide a neat, sensationalistic storyline, but the intense focus on this issue is off the mark. Check out the website and contact your local PBS station and ask them to rebroadcast "Modern Meat."

President Bush's secret trip to Iraq on Thanksgiving Day raised plenty of questions about "The Media's" role in the journey, but I haven't seen a lot of coverage about how the Bush Administration was able to pull this off in the "24-hour news environment" that we hear so much about these days.

No journalist had a source in the White House, Secret Service, Air Force, Andrews Air Force Base, or any of the other support or security agencies involved in planning for this trip, which reportedly was going on for a month? I haven't seen a lot of journalists coming forth and saying, "Yeah, we knew about it, but decided not to run it." It seems it really was a secret until the last minute, which is extraordinary with so many reporters working not only the Washington political beat, but the Iraq war, the Defense Department, and security issues overall.

The trip was a political boon for Bush, and his staff, at all levels, deserves praise for not leaking, but what does it say about the reporters covering this Administration? Do you think this story would've remained secret under Clinton, or the first Bush Administration? No way.

I'm happy everyone involved got to Iraq and back safely, and the troops were able to see their Commander in Chief, but if I were an editor or executive producer in a news organization, I'd wonder how this could get by all the reporters out there who've been developing sources over the past three years, and wonder what else has been going on in the Bush Administration that the public doesn't have any idea about.

The National Academy of Sciences published their opinion of the problems with the Klamath River situation and made some suggestions for possible solutions. The question is, are some of these ideas - like breaching dams and finding additional flows for the river - realistic and timely enough to help the Klamath basin and the people and fish who depend on the river?

It seems my prediction for the CA recall was wrong - and by a healthy margin. I really thought that once voters took a longer look at Arnold they'd realize they didn't have it so bad with Davis. Wrong. Even the late revelations about abusive behavior toward women didn't really change anything (Arnold took a surprising percentage of women voters - 44%, compared to 35% for Bustamante). Click here for the LA Times exit poll.

Bush was in the state yesterday and it really has been interesting to see so-called social conservatives give up a lot of their deeply held moral values and vote for Arnold, even though his social policies are much much closer to Clinton than Bush or Reagan. A fiscal conservative? What politician isn't in California these days. Just goes to show if it looks like you're a winner, people will fall in line. Will it make any difference in 2004? I doubt it.