That's how long it took someone -- NPR's Michelle Norris, to be specific -- to utter the "F" word (as in "foreclosures") during another fatuous edition of Meet the Press last Sunday. What should have been the lead story was relegated to a frenetic exchange at the tail end of the show.

During that flurry of sentences, panelists generally agreed that our economy is at a tipping point, that the home-lending crisis is overrunning other economic sectors, our banking system is in serious peril and that the Federal Reserve's emergency bailout of Bear Stearns was a salutary move but one that daren't be repeated too often.

When investment banks started taking direct ownership stakes in Nevada casinos, our regulators obliged them by waiving much of the pre-licensing scrutiny that would be visited upon a wannabe casino owner. As then-Control Board member Bobby Siller pointed out at the time (in his customary role as Voice in the Wilderness), Las Vegas wasn't hurting for investment and Nevada was setting a dangerous precedent. In the case of Goldman Sachs' Las Vegas Hilton buy-in, it was able to translate a 21% ownership into a 40% voting share plus veto power over key decisions.

One of the key arguments in favor of giving Goldman Sachs a free pass was that it spared large companies the inconvenience of a "cumbersome" approval process. My heart bleeds. If it's cumbersome it's because, until mid-2006, Nevada regulators at least liked to pretend that thorough vetting was the only way to keep bad actors out of the casino business. But nothing could go wrong with a Wall Street investment bank, right?

So far, no. But had it been Bear Stearns that bought into the Las Vegas Hilton, snapped up Carl Icahn's Nevada casinos, etc., quite a few sphincters would be puckering right about now.

As for the national media, when there's an (absurdly protracted) election cycle in progress, it's hard-pressed to talk of anything else. We may be in what Alan Greenspan calls the worst economy since World War II, but that rates only passing mention compared to the breath expended on Barack Obama's 'I've stopped taking my medication' pastor or the obstreperous Geraldine Ferraro.

Right now, I'd like to pack both the Democratic candidates off on John McCain's fact-finding mission to Iraq and keep the whole triumvirate overseas until late September or so. Then maybe the Tim Russerts of the world would be forced to cover some real news.

'It's all the media's fault.' That's the preposterous line of PR bilge being pumped by The Gibber on behalf of corner-cutting buddy Dr. Dipak Desai. I agree with Gibbons that there's "buffoonery" on display, but not by the press corps.

Update: Thanks to aforesaid "buffoonery" by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Gibbons has done another what 180 and belatedly sacked several sleepy watchdogs. Score one for the Fourth Estate. As for Gibbons, it'll be fascinating to see what side of the issue he comes down on tomorrow ... and the day after that ... and the day after that.