I found out from a family member who happened to catch CNN's Inside Politics this afternoon, who watched as Judy Woodruff, Jackie Schechner, and Abbi Tatton discussed the news from the blogosphere -- apparently a new development on the show. My phone rang when she heard Schechner start discussing the Douglas Wead tapes and CNN turned to CQ for a reaction:

SCHECHNER: Something that we all seem to agree on at this point. Again, talking about President Bush. He's in Europe on his trip, meeting with world leaders. And that seems to be the top story in the mainstream media. Also talking about the tapes. But the tapes, more interesting on the blogs today, or at least it seems.

We went over to captainsquartersblog.com. I'm going to try to pull it up. There we go. We're lucky. A couple of minutes ago it wouldn't come up. [My logs show a short interruption in service, probably a problem with my web host ... sorry! -- CE] A conservative site, talking about Doug Wead, the family friend of President Bush who went ahead and recorded these tapes and is now releasing him. Talking about -- he calls him Judas Preacher, because I guess Wead was a one-time preacher. It doesn't have anything favorable to say about him. And the quote was, "He's a disgusting piece of human slime." The blogs seem to agree that what Doug Wead did was pretty scummy.

That was unexpected -- I had also heard that C-SPAN mentioned a couple of my posts earlier this week in relation to the Eason Jordan story, which didn't surprise me as much as this did. That wasn't the end of Inside Politics' references, either. I got a phone call after Tatton mentioned hospiblogging, a word I made up last year during the First Mate's kidney problems and I discovered ways to poach Internet access with my laptop. (Later on, I started dialyblogging at her dialysis center, too.) I didn't mean to start a trend, and CNN also notes that we could do without the necessity of it in the blogosphere:

TATTON: Hospiblogging. We saw this last week. A couple of the big profile sites out there, Instapundit and also Captain's Quarters. They have people in their family who are sick. And they've been blogging from the hospital.

SCHECHNER: So Judy, a term we hope we don't hear more of. But hospiblogging, something we wanted to share with our viewers. And we hope everyone is OK.

WOODRUFF: Tell us again, Jacki, what exactly that is. That's a term that's new to most of us.

SCHECHNER: Yes, we wanted to give you the opportunity to learn what that was. Hospiblogging. We've got Instanpundit Glenn Reynolds, whose wife is sick. So he is doing his blogging from the hospital. Also over at Captain's Quarters, Captain Ed, who calls his wife the first mate, he's hospiblogging. And it's a sad trend that we don't want to see any more of. And we're hearing that everyone's OK and we're happy to hear that and we'd like to wish them well. But hospiblogging -- one of the terms that is coming out of this new blogosphere explosion.

Nothing like the media using a word one jokingly coined to add a little unreality to one's day! But we'd certainly like to welcome Woodruff, Schechner, Tatton, and the Inside Politics crew to CQ and hope we provide them with plenty of material for their viewers. Big thanks to all three for their kind words and support of the First Mate, who was thrilled by the mention.

CLARIFICATION: I didn't take any of the above to be demeaning in the least. I'm touched that they mentioned the FM, and I've often expressed the hope that hospiblogging doesn't catch on as the next fad. CNN was very kind to me, and I hope they do come back and make CQ one of their regular stops. I just wanted to give it a light touch for this post, but I think some might think I was offended when I wasn't. Sorry for any confusion!

ANOTHER CLARIFICATION: To make this absolutely clear ... I'm hoping everyone stays well and never have to go to a hospital. If you or a family member happen to be there, bring your laptop. It helps keep you sane. Trust me.

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