Mary Matalin says that by going to Brit Hume for yesterday's interview, the vice president's office wanted to avoid the "grandstanding" of a press conference. "Everyone asks the same questions so they can get on their networks," she tells Howard Kurtz.

Of course, there's a unresolved question of whether this interview resolves anything: "Going to Brit Hume doesn't solve Dick Cheney's crisis problem," said Lanny Davis, a Democratic lawyer and damage-control specialist. "It's not because Brit Hume works for Fox, because Hume is a tough reporter. It's because it doesn't address the elephant-in-the-room issue, which is Dick Cheney and his refusal to be open with the press."

But then again, Hume addressed that question in his own media criticism: "It doesn't seem to me, from what I can tell, from what I'm reading from the public, that the public much cares about whether they found out about this on Saturday night or Sunday afternoon or Monday morning."

Really?

> UPDATE: Fox News' senior VP John Moody claims "Brit is sort of the pre-eminent journalist in Washington right now." Again, really?