Dear Senator Reid:

How do you as an experienced political figure justify making a statement that you must know will only get torqued and twisted by the corporate media omitting the "qualifier", leading many Democrats to be even angrier toward you and other Democratic leaders.  (This isn’t a question, or if it is, it’s purely rhetorical, so I’ve skipped the indicated punctuation mark.)

It is reported as of yesterday [Harry Reid: Brief troop surge OK in Iraq]
that you would support a temporary troop increase, qualifying it as "only if it were part of broader strategy to bring combat forces home by early 2008." A big thanks to Ted Kennedy for openly refusing to support you in this.

It's been awhile since I've tuned in to NPR, and this morning I am keenly disappointed in what passes for reporting and commentary on that netweork these days.

On Weekend Edition, I just finished listening to a report about Bu$h's meeting with Al-Maliki. Every word amounted to a statement that the purpose of the meeting was to reassure Al-Maliki that the U.S. continued to back him or would be there for him.

Daniel Shor's weekly blurb on NPR (via KQED-FM)leaves me both depressed and frightened. Much has been written in these pages about the decline of NPR, but I always have held on to the thought that people like Daniel Shor would never stoop to the "numnuts" level of non-reporting that many others on national media have sunk to.

But a few minutes ago, Shor was asked by the dreckhost of the show about Jim Webb's meeting with Bush, much-diaried on this website. Without more, lacking any context or effort at providing information about what these photo op invitations amount to, Shor simply said Webb rudely told the president that what Webb's [Iraq-based active-duty] son thought was between Webb and his son.  That was it.

NPR is dead to me.  And so is Daniel Shor.  

Caution:  You are entering a conspiracy zone...

So Lamont cleans Lieberman's political clock on Tuesday, coming from behind in May at 65%-19% to arrive at victory at 52%-48% on August 8. Then Rove calls Lieberman and says, "The boss says we'll do whatever we can do for you," or words to that effect. Then the very next morning, being today, the Bu$hCo-compliant British govt uncovers the "liquid terror" airplane plot.

Ya know, it's entirely possible that the "liquid terror" airplane plot, if real at all, has been known for some time, and Bu$hCo administration asked the British govt to hold off announcing it until some politically useful time for Bu$hCo, such as right now, knowing that it would blow Lamont's win and Democratic optimism right off the front page and out of the (purported) mind of Americans.