BUZZ.

Byline: - Staff and Wire Services

ULTRASOUND AND THE FURY: When Tom Cruise announced he had bought an ultrasound machine so he could see his unborn daughter, a California lawmaker thought the ``Mission: Impossible'' star had gone too far.

The California Assembly is scheduled to debate a bill Thursday that would ban manufacturers in the state from selling the imaging devices to anyone but a licensed medical professional.

``If someone sees Tom Cruise buy one, they think this is the thing to do,'' said Democratic Assemblyman Ted Lieu, who wrote the bill after consulting with his brother, a radiologist, and brother-in-law, a doctor.

Although Cruise's fiancee, Katie Holmes, gave birth to a healthy baby girl named Suri on April 18, Lieu said he fears copycat fans might buy ultrasound machines for home use, which doctors say could harm a fetus.

Doctors and technologists receive years of training to perform ultrasound exams.

Cruise's purchase last year of an ultrasound machine set off alarm in a medical community that fears excited parents will go online to buy their own device. One such device was listed Wednesday on the online auction site eBay and was selling for $5,500.

COLBERT IN THE HOT SEAT: Mark Smith, an Associated Press reporter who is president of the White House Correspondents' Association, acknowledges he hadn't seen much of Stephen Colbert on Comedy Central before he booked him as the main entertainment for the association's annual dinner on Saturday. But he says he knew enough to expect that Colbert would cause some discomfort among the 2,600 guests, many of them politicians and reporters.

What Smith did not anticipate, he said, was that Colbert's nearly 20-minute address would become one of the most hotly debated topics in the politically charged blogosphere. Colbert delivered his remarks in character as the Bill O'Reilly-esque commentator he plays on ``The Colbert Report,'' although this time his principal foil, President Bush, was just a few feet away.

At issue was a heavily nuanced, often ironic performance by Colbert, who got in many licks at the president - on the invasion of Iraq, on the administration's penchant for secrecy, on domestic eavesdropping - with lines that sounded supportive of Bush but were quickly revealed to be anything but. And all this after Colbert tried, at the outset, to soften up the president by mocking his own intelligence, saying that he and Bush were ``not so different,'' by which he meant, he explained, ``We're not brainiacs on the nerd patrol.''

``Now I know there's some polls out there saying this man has a 32 percent approval rating,'' Colbert said moments later. ``But guys like us, we don't pay attention to the polls. We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking `in reality.' And reality has a well-known liberal bias.''

In an online survey begun Tuesday, the snarky Web site Gawker sought to boil down the matter to its essence by asking readers to vote on whether they thought Colbert's performance, broadcast live on C-SPAN and since then widely available on the Internet, was ``one of the most patriotic acts I've witnessed of any individual'' or ``not really that funny.''

`IDOL' TIMES: With ``American Idol's'' ratings higher than ever, a compilation album featuring the final dozen contestants is due to hit stores May 23, the day the top two contenders battle it out in the season finale of the top-rated Fox singing contest.

``American Idol Season 5 Encores'' features the best performances from the current season. Tracks include Sherman Oaks' Katharine McPhee's cover of Aretha Franklin's ``Think,'' rocker Chris Daughtry's take on Bon Jovi's ``Wanted Dead or Alive,'' Kellie Pickler's reading of Patsy Cline's ``Walkin' After Midnight'' and Taylor Hicks singing the Doobie Brothers' ``Takin' It to the Streets.''

Also on deck are Elliott Yamin's cover of James Moody's ``Moody's Mood for Love,'' Mandisa's ``I'm Every Woman'' and Ace Young's take on George Michael's ``Father Figure.''

The first four ``American Idol'' compilations have sold about 2.4 million copies combined. And counting all of the contestants who have released albums since the series debuted in 2002, the ``American Idol'' franchise has sold over 19 million albums and 4.5 million singles.

NOT ENOUGH VOTES: If you're looking for ``Commander in Chief'' tonight, forget it. The ABC series that started with such promise has been yanked for the rest of May sweeps. (Viewership dropped to 6.5 million last week, a series low.) ``Primetime'' will fill in for the rest of the month. The move would seem to signal the end for the White House drama. For those who care watching: ABC currently plans to air the last three hours of the series sometime in June.

DID YOU HEAR THE ONE ABOUT PRESIDENT BUSH?

Perhaps sensing vulnerability, the late-night comics have been piling on President Bush.

During the first three months of the year, Bush has been the punch line of 307 monologue jokes by Jay Leno, David Letterman and Conan O'Brien, according to the Center for Media and Public affairs, which studies this sort of thing.

That compares to 197 jokes during the same period last year. For all of 2005, the center's statisticians counted 544 Bush jokes.

``Bush's numbers in public approval polls may be sinking consistently, but he's never been more popular with the late-night hosts,'' said Robert Lichter, the center's president.

Most of the jokes are about Bush's intelligence, rather than his policies, the center said.

For example:

``Did you know former President James Garfield could write Latin with one hand and Greek with the other at the same time?'' Leno said. ``That was Garfield. When President Bush heard about it, he said, `We had a talking cat for president?'''

One of Letterman's jokes: ``Lincoln had an IQ of 120. Bush's IQ is under four score and seven.''

CAPTION(S):

4 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) Tom Cruise picked up this mini Gibson guitar for his new baby, Suri, during his recent visit to MTV's ``Total Request Live.''

Peter Kramer/Getty Images

(2 -- color) no caption (Stephen Colbert)

(3 -- color) no caption (President George W. Bush)

Roger L. Wollenberg POOL/Getty Images

(4 -- color) Taylor Hicks performs ``Takin' It to the Streets'' on ``American Idol.''