IS THIS WHAT TINA BROWN MEANT when she said that she favors a more metrosexual approach to foreign relations?

"You can't ever make serious progress against terrorism unless you deal with Israel. We are not dealing with Israel. We've backed away. We're afraid of the political consequences."

Pat Buchanan talking? No, in fact it was former New York governor Mario Cuomo. Furthermore, said Cuomo in an interview with the New Haven Register, the U.S. should tell Israel: "Up until now it was just you and the Palestinians killing one another - now you are killing us. Now there are people out there who are taking Israel as the provocation to terrorize us all over the globe - in the United States and elsewhere."

And Cuomo suggested that Israeli leaders be told that "you have a responsibility to all of us (and) we are going to be more assertive in dealing with you.... So let's sit down and talk."

Forty-eight hours after his words appeared in print, a backpedaling Cuomo called the Register to "clarify" his comments. "We have to be more assertive as to both sides, to force them together, not just the Israelis," he said, although he did not retract any of his earlier statements.

More surprising than the harsh tone of Cuomo's remarks was that no New York newspaper, or any media outlet, for that matter, reported them. Then again, given Cuomo's status as a Democratic Party hero -- and in light of the relatively positive press coverage he received during a 12-year tenure as governor that was long on rhetorical flourishes and short on tangible accomplishment -- the silence of New York's media lambs was to be expected.

Bias by commission occurs when the media report a story in a slanted fashion.

Bias by omission occurs, most dramatically, when the media simply refuse to report a story whatsoever.

The media is constantly offering us what are claimed to be objective and neutral rules which, they imply, more or less dictate that they report a story in a certain way, or don't report a story at all. Trouble is, the "rules" established for, say, giving anti-Jew remarks by a Republican the full-court press suddenly seem inoperative, and not quite "rules" at all, when a Democrat makes similar remarks.

I used to tell the story about how Mario Cuomo once complimented my mother's kishkes. "These are great kishkes," he said. "Fabulous. Best I've ever had!"

But f*** him if I'll tell that story anymore.