Well said, and I think I've tried to make much the same points, however ponderously (brevity is not my strong suit). But, as we both know, it's of no use on L'il Dickie Cheney. He only responds to pain, and then comes back for more. Like any true Rovian.

Ah, Gandhi, King, Bush. Now there's a logical progression of moral titans.

The fatal (for it, thankfully) mistake that the administration and its closely coordinated team of talking point surrogates in congress, the media, the blogosphere and elsewhere (blog trolls? CSPAN callers?) continue to make is to assume that the mind-numbingly inane (and of course unfounded) mantras and cheers that they employed for Bush's first term--even then only just marginally effective enough to squeak out a narrow popular vote loss in 2000 and a narrow win in 2004 (vast indications of election tampering in both notwithstanding) and only truly effective in the brief post-9/11 persiod--would continue to work as evidence of its massive failures in Iraq and at home continued to get past the MSM's truth filters. It's really quite stunning just how unoriginal, tone-deaf and brain-dead its strategy for rallying support for Bush's war policies and against the Democrats' anti-war efforts has been and still is. And, of course, indicative of the utter lack of substantive thinking and insight that has been the hallmark of this administration from the start. It really does come down to something along the lines of:

Bush good, Democrats bad

Victory good, surrender bad

Fight them there, not here

Fight fight fight

Kill kill kill

Go team go!

Yeay!

I don't know which is sadder, that they literally can't come up with anything more substantive than trite and insulting pop mantras, or that they still believe that the public is going to buy it. Not only have they retreated to the bunker, but there seems to be a shortage of oxygen in it. Who's in charge of the ventilation down there--Rush Limbaugh?

Rah rah rass, kick 'em in the...help, someone shot poor Harry again!

But hasn't this been the outcome of the administration's "strategy for success", both in Iraq and domestically, on the political front? Bad for the US in Iraq, of course, but fantastic for it here.

The only losses and defeats you speak of are inalterably of the administration's making.

Heckuva job, Bushie!

David Sirota has a diary on DailyKos right now on last night's 60 Minutes segment on Lou Dobbs, that discusses the issue of journalistic bias, both acknowledged and unacknowledged, and on his opinion that the former kind is better and more honest than the latter kind (with yours truly posting a typically longish comment on how NO bias is preferable to either):

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/5/7/1055/16408

No journalist is free of bias, just as no person is. It's simply not possible. But honest and professional journalists at least try their best to minimize their biases, both personal and acquired, which begins with their acknowledgement, if not to the public, then at least to themselves. And even more important than trying to be unbiased (which, in the end, it is impossible to completely be), journalists should try--for a refreshing and shocking change--to stick to actual facts, and not to a CW or establishmentarian interpretation of them (i.e. spin).

"Journalists" like Hume and Kurtz are both partisan and dishonest. Hume, for clearly ideological (but probably also personal and professional) reasons, Kurtz in my opinion, more for personal and professional reasons (i.e. he's an inherently dishonest cowards who's just kissing up to the powers that be to advance his career) than for ideological ones. I dislike their partisanship, but it's their dishonesty that most disturbs me. If you favor one side over another, fine, that's your prerogative. Just don't shape your reporting to match your favoratism, which is dishonest.

Because dishonest reporting, far more than partisan reporting, is no reporting at all, but rather propaganda, and yellow journalism. Neither of which is tolerable in media outlets that call themselves news organizations--least of all ones that call themselves "fair and balanced". Last time I checked, lying and smearing is neither fair nor balanced.

In perhaps my one and only invocation of Saint Ronnie--appropriately enough the man most responsible for the current political and media alignment within the beltway--I implore his High Broderness to please stop pretending that it's 1984 and the country is a center-right place. It is not, and hasn't been for some time. Stop lying, and get your head out of your ass.

It's not your place anymore, Mr. Broder, and yet you still trash it.

Was that too impolite?