I realize that this is merely a drop in the bucket, but Howard Kurtz once again showed that his brief is defending the media rather than critiquing it, as the title of his Washington Post column claims.

In a chat today ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2007/06/01/DI2007060101431.html ) the first question he took was from Arlington, VA. The questioner expressed dismay at the media's intense coverage of reporters who got injured in Iraq, compared to the relative silence about injuries and fatalities suffered by US soldiers. Kurtz's reply, in total:

Howard Kurtz: If you had seen Kimberly Dozier's special or read my piece, you would know that she puts the emphasis on what happens to American troops, not on her injuries or the deaths of her two CBS colleagues. Yes, prominent network correspondents who are injured tend to get more attention than unknown soldiers, but both Dozier and Bob Woodruff have used their personal tragedies to train the spotlight back on the soldiers. Here's what Dozier, who had more than 25 operations after the bombing, told me:

"The importance of that day is not that we were there. We were there during what happens to soldiers 20 to 30 times a day. Everything that happened that day is the story of the U.S. military in Iraq."

As you probably noticed, Kurtz was being disingenuous. The questioner wasn't criticising the injured reporters; s/he was critiquing the rest of the media. Why did Kurtz chose to pretend otherwise?

I posted a comment immediately:

Mr. Kurtz, your response to Arlington, Va. begged the question. The questioner was not blaming the injured reporters for the skewed coverage; s/he was blaming the rest of the media, i.e. your beat.

Instead of responding, you used the injured reporters themselves as cover to avoid the issue. Could you respond to the question that was asked, please?

Needless to say, my comment did not meet Mr. Kurtz's high standards for response. Thank goodness he had time to address such important issues as large-breasted spammers on MySpace, his experiences wearing bell-bottomed jeans, the wackiness and irrelevance of Cindy Sheehan, a replacement for Don Imus, and the state of Stone Phillip's career.

Nice to know that Mr. Kurtz has his priorities - and his duties as America's most-respected media critic - in order!

Rome?

Despite a few mealy-mouthed phrases from The Decider designed to stall real action, we continue to produce waste at a rate which is likely to render our environment unable to support our species.

There's another species which reproduces madly and produces waste without restriction, turning its environment into an unsurvivable hell and self-exterminating its population.

We may be Rome. But we're probably yeast, too.

"...20 percent have had real-life meetings with folks they first met online..." - and that's supposed to scare us?

I first met my wife-to-be online. Obviously our wonderful son would never have been born WITHOUT the internet. But apparently those senators consider that to be a bad thing.

I knew that Joe Lieberman was a supercilious son-of-a-bitch, but I'm slightly surprised at Barack Obama. Although the bloom was fading from his rose pretty quickly already, as far as I was concerned. Screwing his MySpace supporter was a clear indication that he's just like Hillary and so many other phony populist politicians: he'll say anything he thinks we rubes want to hear.

Too slick and manipulative by half.

The internet is very dangerous? How about pandering politicians?

I haven't watched the Sopranos since season 2; haven't had time, more than anything else. But I've kept tabs on it via online writeups.

Didn't see the finale, either, but when I read the description here the first thing I thought was that Tony probably had a massive heart attack right after the end. Let's face it; all that rich food is deadly, particularly on a man carrying as much belly-fat as Tony.

His high-stress lifestyle is just the icing on the cake.

When I read articles like this about Mitt Romney, I feel like Miles Bennel at the end of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" - wandering around on a busy road, trying to warn passersby of an impending disaster...only to be ignored.

PLEASE look into Mitt Romney's record as governor of Massachusetts. It's a joke. It utterly dispels the myth of Romney as the efficient, effective administrator. His looks, his smooth handling of his "brand" and message? Those are his only skills.

He was a disaster as governor. Okay, perhaps his supporters will argue that his incompetence was deliberate; his way of attacking a state and voting public which he has clearly shown that he despises. Is there a Republican group in any primary state which HASN'T heard Mitt Romney attack the people of Massachusetts? I doubt it.

Under his watch, the Big Dig collapsed and killed a woman. Public transit decayed even further. Parks - Massachusetts is blessed with astonishingly beautiful parks, many created by Frederick Law Olmsted himself. Under the administration of "Mr. Efficiency", they've become the most neglected, decayed parks in the country.

My own experience: I saw regular, dangerous overcrowding on a commuter train and wrote an email to Mitt Romney's office about it. How long did it take for his office to respond?

Five months. And when they did, it was with a kiss-off form email. No action was taken, of course.

Romney would do anything to get the Presidency. ANYTHING. But he won't be a good one - he may even make George W. Bush look good in retrospect, impossible as that seems!

Please check for yourself. Mitt Romney has fabricated a myth of himself as a great businessman. But that's all it is - a myth. Surely the war in Iraq has taught us how dangerous it is to uncritically swallow a myth made up by a self-serving politician?