Reporter's Regret

Now some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine:

NBC White House correspondent David Gregory is calling his temper tantrum during a White House briefing last week "a mistake." Gregory accused spokesman Scott McClellan of avoiding his questions on Vice President Dick Cheney's hunting accident, and called him a jerk. Gregory then refused to stop yelling, saying, "I'll calm down when I feel like calming down."

Gregory now says it was "inappropriate for me to lose my cool with the press secretary representing the president. I don't think it was very professional," adding, "it created a diversion from some of the serious questions in the story, so I regret that. I was wrong, and I apologize."

‘Crossed the Line’

Meanwhile, The Washington Post's ombudsman says reporter Dana Milbank, "has been taken to The Post's version of the woodshed," after appearing on a cable news show wearing an orange hat and vest to mock the Vice President's accident.

The paper's assistant managing editor for national news tells Deborah Howell that Milbank "crossed the line" on his TV appearance and Howell writes that if editors insist Milbank is a reporter and not an opinion columnist, he "ought to drop the funny hats and stay away from comedy shows."

Big Bounty

A government minister in India has offered $11.5 million to anyone who beheads one of the Danish artists responsible for those controversial cartoons of the prophet Muhammad.

Muhammad Quereshi — minister of state for Haj and Minorities Welfare in India's largest state, said "the avenger" would also receive his weight in gold, adding that the money would be paid by the people of his province.

The state's home secretary tells the Arab News that Quereshi "was simply expressing the common feeling of members of his community" and violated no laws since he "did not make the announcement in his capacity as a minister."

Paranoid Hugo?

Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez has warned Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice against interfering in his country, saying, "Don't mess with me, girl" and sarcastically offering her a kiss. Chavez also mockingly referred to Rice as "Condolence" during his weekly TV broadcast. The warning comes just days after Rice described Venezuela as one of the West's "biggest problems" and called for the region to unite to expose Venezuela's "anti-Democratic behavior."

This isn't the first time Chavez has been dismissive of the U.S. Secretary, he called Rice "a true illiterate" in 2004, and later said she only spoke out against him because she wanted to sleep with him.

— FOX News' Aaron Bruns contributed to this report