This morning on Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer, Henry Kissinger was interviewed about Bob Woodward’s new book and his mention in it. Highlights follow…

On his role in the Bush White House

KISSINGER: I haven’t read the book, but I have — first of all, my conversations with the president and the vice president — I think if they counted the number of times Secretary Powell and Secretary Rice have asked my opinion, they would be at least as frequent as the other two.

BLITZER: Excuse me for interrupting, Dr. Kissinger, but the book suggests that, at least once a month, if not more frequently, you’re consulted, you’re brought in by the president or the vice president.

KISSINGER: I have told you what the balance is. And I think you will find that I have seen the secretary of state as frequently as I’ve seen the president and the vice president and that it’s almost always at the request of the people that I’m talking to.
(more…)

The Boston Globe’s Joanna Weiss writes about FNC’s 10th Anniversay…

And Shepard Smith, the anchor of the evening news show “Fox Report,” points to his own reporting from New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, and the way he sparred with the right-wing Hannity, who was anchoring the coverage, over the speed of the federal government’s response.

“All right, Shep, I want to get some perspective here, because earlier today — ” Hannity had said during one live broadcast.

“That is perspective!” Smith had shouted back. “That is all the perspective you need!”

By phone from New York, Smith said he hopes that moment was a turning point for viewers. “It so happened that, on that day, there were millions and millions and millions of people who were watching us,” he says. “And they were stunned to find that all we were doing was being journalists.”

Critics, he says, need to recognize that the network offers two different kinds of shows.

The New York Times’ Lorne Manly writes about the increased Democratic attacks on FNC in the wake of the Bill Clinton/Chris Wallace interview…

Engaging Fox News in such an aggressive manner, however, may not be the smartest strategy. If there’s a base that needs energizing for these midterm elections, it belongs to the Republicans, and a Clinton-led attack may only revivify them. And so far, there is just one clear beneficiary: Fox News. The news channel has highlighted the contretemps on many of its programs, boosting the ratings in the process.

Democrats do not view Chris Wallace as a partisan gunslinger, as they do some other Fox News personalities. But his questions about whether Mr. Clinton did enough to destroy Al Qaeda ignited simmering Democratic and Clintonian anger.