Glenn G. writes, "Chris Matthews came right out and said that he cannot fathom how anyone could dislike George Bush and regards anyone who does as a 'real whack-job on the left.' Just imagine the uproar among our journalist class, the screeches of protest in Howard Kurtz's column, if a 'news anchor' had said: 'Everybody dislikes the president, except for the real whack-jobs, maybe on the right.' Would anyone think that a 'news anchor' could make a statement like that and retain a claim of credibility as an anchor?"

Allow me to be the first to point out that, given Bush-Cheney's shameful poll numbers, any news anchor who dared report that "everybody dislikes the president except for the real wack-jobs on the right" would essentially be telling the truth. Whereas Matthews's gushing man-crush praise for Junior Bush was very far from true, then and now.

Yesterday George Snuffleupugus effectively and ruthlessly cross-examined John Edwards and did to him what the corporate media always does to Dems. That is, make them look like "big fat phonies" (in Bob Somerby's phrase). Yet Tom Tancredo came on next -- and was not even asked about his apparent belief that Earth is no more than 6000 years old and that Adam and Eve rode to church on dinosaurs. A discreet silence was observed on ABC-Disney concerning Tancredo's stunning admission last week that he (and two other serious Republican candidates, Brownback and Huckabee) is an Evolution Denier.

One of Glenn Greenwald's regular posters pointed out that the right's fear and loathing of the Fairness Doctrine gives the lie, once and for all, to their screeching about the "liberal media." That is, if conservatives really believed corporate media in the U.S. has a liberal bias they would be demanding the return of the Fairness Doctrine in order to get a fair shake. Instead, the Fairness Doctrine -- abolished by Saint Ronald Reagan -- is (besides Bill Clinton in the White House) the LAST thing conservatives want to see brought back.

The hit piece refers to Keith Olbermann as an "idealogue" [sic] and a "partisan". In the interest of space I will not recite the dictionary definitions of these terms. Suffice to say both are fairly applied to Faux News (whose owner admitted using Faux to further the Gop's pro-war agenda), but neither term may accurately be applied to Keith Olbermann. Keith has become a hero to many for his special comments on the folly of Bush-Cheney; but I have never heard him promote the Democratic Party or its candidates or agenda.

Go back and read the AP's hit piece. Note its sources (Brent Bozell), and the lack thereof (e.g., for the baseless comparison to O'Reilly) and the incorrect assertion that Faux does not mix its news and opinion people (cf. Brit Hume). The AP piece is astonishingly lame, and illustrates the problem of America's corporate media getting stories from right-wing "think tanks" and self-appointed "watchdog groups" -- at least in those instances where the "news" does not come directly from the RNC or the Bush-Cheney White House itself.

By the way, what is a "moonbat"? Is it the latest cute phrase, like Bush-basher, used to describe those of us who disapprove of Bush-Cheney - 62% of Americans at last count?

I misspoke earlier when I said 62% of Americans disapprove of Bush-Cheney. It's really 64% who disapprove of Bush-Cheney. Only 28% approve. Thus the "Reagan revolution" dies its ugly death in the sands of Iraq. Hence the wingnuts' hatred of Keith Olbermann.

Wasn't there a new study showing (once again) that the audiences for Jon, Stephen and Keith are the best-informed? and that Faux's audience is among the worst-informed and the likeliest to believe there were WMD in Iraq or connections to 9/11? Faux/Unbalanced.

A very interesting interview; and I think I should like to read Mr. Horne's book about Verdun. What intrigued me most, even more than the reference to the now-obscure Anarchist terror (which was defeated by working class prosperity rather than world war), is the notion that Mr. Blair's motives for going along with this "war" remain a mystery.

President Eisenhower ignored TIME when that conservative newsmagazine more or less called him a coward for refusing to buy into the war they were trying to drum up in Laos in the 50's. The supreme commander of D-Day could afford to laugh at his chickenhawks; but few other leaders, male or female, have the political courage to resist such taunts.

Old generals who have seen enough war in their lifetimes might be a good guarantee of peace; but the best solution is to remove the temptation of war from the insecurities of any one man and place them firmly in a council of elders. America's worst misfortunes have been the result of Congress abdicating its war powers; is that also true in Britain?