Wouldn't it be great if these corporate media hucksters saw fit to apply this tact across the board? When Bush utters an inanity like: "Our strategy is straightforward: As Iraqis stand up, Americans will stand down," you'd cut to Blitzer or Donner or Vixen and a guest with an opposing view: "Well, Wolfe, clearly, our President is talking out of his ass, again."

American reporters, both in newsprint and on the airwaves, have never been so corrupted. They suck at the teat of the Beltway as if they were Biafran children in need of curdled mother's milk, not to get news to spread to us common folk, but to further their careers and endorse government spewed propaganda as fact.

As Dan Froomkin, an aces on-line writer for the notso-hotso "The Washington Post," reported last week, these guys will do anything to keep their jobs.

"About 50 members of the White House press corps accepted President Bush's invitation last night to come over to his house in Crawford, eat his food, drink his booze, hang around the pool and schmooze with him -- while promising not to tell anyone what he said afterward."

Perfect. Reporters sworn to secrecy in order to touch the hem of our feckless leader.

The Associated Press weighed in with a jovial: "The casual affair of fried catfish, potato salad, coleslaw, homemade cheese and chocolate-chip cookies followed a tradition in which Bush and his wife, Laura, have the press covering his annual August vacation out to the their ranch in central Texas as a sort of thank-you."

Yes, thank-you for bowing down to the Anointed One.

As Froomkin pointed out: "One Bush touch particularly appreciated by the working media: Invitations were sent out at the last minute, so that only the reporters and photographers already in the area could attend -- preventing any bigfooting by the media elites in Washington or New York, or on vacation themselves."

So, if you're covering Sheehan? Have a brewski. Covering Karl Rove? Forgaddabouditt! Another ironic note. In order to get to the big bash, all the reporters had to drive past Sheehan's camp en route to the Republican version of Valhalla. What's death, when you can get a head pat from our perspiring President.

And Bush has good reason to sweat.

Cindy Sheehan's face is George Bush's worst enemy. Why? Because it's real. She's not a politician. She's not a group. She's a mom.

Because of that fact, the Republican smear machine and, by extension, the slackard press in its thrall, have been working overtime, even going so far as to "create" a prefabricated grassroots movement via a Republican-oriented PR firm dubbed: "You Don't Speak For Me, Cindy." Its bus tour, professionally organized (as opposed to Sheehan's decision to camp out at Crawford and actually being backed by real people), has been getting pumped up by all the cable outlets. CNN. MSNBC. And, of course, Fox... which should have been re-named Weasel about eight years ago. (Sorry, real-life weasels.)

Even Dubya, facing three polls in the past week which give him between a 36% and 40% popularity rating with nearly 60% of our citizenry now opposed to the Iraqi Quagmire, decided to get on the creative media train, attempting to blunt Sheehan's anti-war mom status by offering a counter-mother: Bush supporter Tammy Pruett. "America lives in freedom because of families like the Pruetts," he smirked last week, introducing the Pruett family on live TV.

Okay. Pruett has had five sons and a husband serving in Iraq. Her husband is, now, home. Her sons are all alive. She's not exactly a grieving mom. (Which fits in with BushCo.'s never-ending attempt to sanitize the war.) Once more, when interviewed after Bush's bloviation, Pruett refused to slam Sheehan...just as Sheehan refuses to slam those military parents who disagree with her position.

Bush's spokesvermin in training, Trent Duffy, has been sticking it to Sheehan all week, even going so far as to comment, "The President... can understand that people don't share his view that we must win the war on terror, and we cannot retreat and cut and run from terrorists, but he just has a different view."

This particularly offensive piece of BushCo. smarminess went widely under-reported, but it's now official. If you don't support Bush's invasion, you want the terrorists or the insurgents or whatever we're calling them to win.

In spite of the countless attacks leveled against her, Sheehan returned to Crawford, not wanting to fight, but wanting to talk.

Still, the news machine decided that the monster must be fed, creating a mountain out of a mole-hill.

MSNBC took the lead via "Hardball" or "Screwball," as the case may be.

Sub(par)-host Norah O'Donnell decided to label Sheehan and her pro-peace followers "anti-war EXTREMISTS" (as opposed to all those 'pro-war' moderates we see screaming across from Camp Casey?) while chatting with Minnesota Democratic congressional candidate and former FBI whistle-blower Colleen Rowley. Rowley supports Sheehan and has visited Camp Casey in Crawford. You want to see what passes for journalism these days? Here ya go. Get the barf bag.

O'DONNELL: Coleen, let me ask you, why do you support Cindy Sheehan's anti-war position?

ROWLEY: Well, I happened to be a person who spoke out publicly against the war a couple of weeks before it was started and warned that it would prove counterproductive to our efforts to combat terrorism. And if you have gone through this chain of mistakes that started with the pre-9-11 lapses and you have seen all of these errors that have occurred since, very serious to our country's security. I don't think you can do anything, except continue to speak out.

O'DONNELL: You're a Democrat running for Congress. It was reported that Republican leaders in your state were just thrilled that you had decided to align yourself with anti-war extremists. Do you think that this could affect your race for Congress?

ROWLEY: Well, I will quickly correct the record that they are not anti-war extremists. The majority of the people I saw down in Crawford were actually veterans groups. There were military families and --

O'DONNELL: But, Coleen, they do oppose the war in Iraq, do they not?

ROWLEY: Yes, they do. But that does not make, I guess the term extremists. They're really, I think, reflective of mainstream America in many ways.

***

O'Donnell also featured Republican stooge Mark Williams who has a professionally- funded "Voices of Soldiers' Truth Tour."

She pitted him against Rowley.

O'DONNELL : Why have you launched this ["You Don't Speak for Me, Cindy"] tour?

WILLIAMS: Well, the pontifications of a self-serving Democrat political candidate notwithstanding, this tour is neither anti-Cindy Sheehan, nor is it pro-war. I have not spoken with a single individual in the last three years who is pro-war, nor anybody who is anti-Cindy Sheehan.

(NOTE: When this group held its pro-Bush rally in Crawford last weekend, the crowd chanted "Cindy, go home!" One protester carried a sign featuring the term "Bitch in the ditch." When a good-hearted Bush-supporter pointed out that the phrase was pretty offensive, the guy got testy, attacked the pro-Bushie with a kick to the nutz and wound up being arrested. Two Bush supporters were attacked by other Bush supporters when their sign was mistaken as being anti-Bush and one protester stood across from Camp Casey with a sign that read: "Repent, you traitorous scum." I guess Williams missed these folks in his three years of chatting.)

WILLIAMS: What we are against is the damage she is causing. I just got back from Iraq, talking with the troops, talking with the Iraqis. And I see the damage that's done by pathetic creatures like the woman I'm talking to [Rowley] and Cindy Sheehan.

O'DONNELL: What specifically do you mean, Mark?

WILLIAMS: I'm about to get to that. When they get up there and they present this country as divided, as still arguing issues that were decided, debated, and voted on three years ago, that both demoralizes our troops and invigorates the insurgency. And it's no mistake that the lion's share of the violence is in and around Baghdad. That's where there are more Western news cameras per capita than probably any other city on the planet Earth. Where they see this kind of division, they use it as a fund-raiser and a recruiting tool.

ROWLEY: Mark, if you don't mind, you're making the case that Cindy Sheehan is hurting the morale of our troops?

WILLIAMS: She is aiding and abetting the enemies of this country and the people who killed her son... Right now, Casey Sheehan is spinning in his grave.

***

On another D'oh Donnell episode, she gave "Vanity Fair's" Christopher ("Open tab") Hitchens a chance to vent:

NORAH O'DONNELL: Christopher, do you think that this represents -- or she represents some sort of tipping point in public opinion in America?

HITCHENS: Certainly not. She has, just today, lied about a statement that she made several times before to the effect that her son was killed in a war run by a secret Jewish cabal within the administration. She now says she didn't make that statement. She did make that statement. So as well as being an hysterical paranoid ideologist, or at least being manipulated by people who are, who turned this into Camp Fruitbat and Nutbag, she has decided not to have the courage or maybe the cowardice of her conviction. She now says she didn't make a statement that she definitely did.

***

Well said, sir. Oh, "Camp Nutbag!" What an exercise in dry wit. Touche! You sir, are the new Oscar Wilde...or, at least, Oscar of "Odd Couple" fame redux.

It should be noted that "Sleezeball" doesn't even ATTEMPT to hide it's bias, anymore, even when the Baron of Blather, Chris Matthews holds court. Last week, he actually had Deborah Orin of "The New York Post" and the aforementioned Hitchens on as guests, side-by-side, discussing the world of politics. This is closely akin to having Burke and Hare critique "Six Feet Under."

(The best quote? Chris to Christopher: "You always write nice thin books. I like that. They're very readable." Uh, try "My Pet Goat," Chris. It even has vewwy nice pictures. May the ghost of Edward R. Murrow come to you in your sleep and bitch-slap you senseless.)

And, of course, thriving and gurgling in the gutter is Fox. Where to begin?

How's this from O'Reilly? "So I mean, I think Mrs. Sheehan bears some responsibility for this and also for the responsibility of other American families who have lost sons and daughters in Iraq, who feel that this kind of behavior borders on treasonous....

"She has thrown in -- there is no question that she has thrown in with the most radical elements in this country. That is -- now, it happened before. Some of the 9-11 families also took this road, you'll remember, and are still active to this day...

"And, you know, there are some people who hate this government, hate their country right now, and blaming Bush for all the terrorism and all the horror in the world."

(Hey, Bill? They might be onto something.)

And how's this from his guest, Michelle Malkin, the "Tokyo Rose" of the Right? "I mean, the New York Times editorial board is all too eager to prop her up as some sort of martyr and to buy her line when clearly her story hasn't checked out."

WHAT STORY? She had a kid? He was killed in an illegal war. What's to check out????

On her blog site, Rose also went on to declare: "I can't imagine Army Spc. Casey Sheehan would stand for his mother's crazy accusations that he was murdered by his commander-in-chief, rather than the Iraqi terrorists who ambushed his convoy."

Michelle? Have a kid. Raise him. Have him die before you do for a political hard-on. Then, get back to me.

On Hannity and Colmes, professional asshole G. Gordon Liddy stated: "Well, I think that it's true that there are Americans who feel the way Cindy Sheehan does. Unfortunately, they are Americans who are very anti-Israel and, in some ways, anti-Semitic. She uses the term how the 'neocons' are doing this thing -- that's code word for 'the Jews in the Pentagon.'"

It's code in Liddy's addled head.

Let's all pause and think about this. Take a deep breath. Why is G. Gordon Liddy, a convicted felon who once taught right-wing American militiamen how to effectively kill bullet-proof vest wearing government agents, weighing in on a pacifist mother? Exhale. Phew! Something stinks. Oh yeah, Fox.

Clearly, the Righties are wedgie tightie over Sheehan. Anne "Adam's Apple" Coulter vented in a recent column: "To expiate the pain of losing her firstborn son in the Iraq war, Cindy Sheehan decided to cheer herself up by engaging in Stalinist agitprop outside President Bush's Crawford ranch." Yeah. When I think Peace advocates? I think Stalin.

She was even more charming on Fox, last week, when she said that, if attacked by terrorists, New Yorkers would roll over and surrender. Hey, beeyoch? Show up in Times Square with a bullhorn and preach that. About a hundred cowardly New Yorkers would be doing the "Mexican Hat Dance" on your anorexic ass in about 2.6 seconds.

So, in terms of cable covering news? I think we're down to about two hosts: CNN's Lou Dobbs and MSNBC's Keith Olbermann. They both present stories with minimum spin. Olbermann has a delightfully bemused attitude about both politics and the MSM. Probably because he comes out of sports reporting, he acknowledges the various game plans embedded in the news and, then, ignores them, often unearthing truly intriguing stories in the process.

Here's a few snippets from one of last week's Olbermann shows highlighting the benefits of BushWorld.

OLBERMANN: For surviving veterans of Iraq, the return home is not easy. Nobody is saying it's like the March on Washington from the so-called Bonus Army in 1932, - World War I vets demanding an immediate payment of a bonus that was scheduled for 1945, some of them eventually shooting it out with General Douglas MacArthur's troops within sight of the Capitol. That all actually happened. But what if I told you that one of the two soldiers who hauled Saddam Hussein out of hiding is, more than a year after his return from Iraq, and more than eight weeks after he started looking for a civilian job, unemployed tonight? Specialist Jeans Cruz joins us from New York tonight. Thank you for your time, sir.

SPEC. JEANS CRUZ (RET.), UNEMPLOYED IRAQ WAR VETERAN: And thank you, Keith.

OLBERMANN: We'll get to the job in a moment. But first, we now have in this country what we certainly didn't have when you left for Iraq, maybe when you got back, a very loud debate on how much longer we should stay in that country. You've more than earned your right to be heard on this. What do you think?

CRUZ: To be honest, it is time to pull out now. As you said, no one needs to die for others who have died. Everybody has their sacrifices. And we do not need to sacrifice more people. We know what everybody else has sacrificed, and we have to praise that right now.

OLBERMANN: So pulling out at this point, to you, would not be diminishing their memories in any way?

CRUZ: No. Actually, it would be showing that, you know, it's time to pull out, giving them concerns to families and showing respect, actually, for my concern.

OLBERMANN: Was there a moment, do you think, when we actually accomplished what we went there for, that you actually accomplished what you went there for?

CRUZ: Honestly, I thought I did. A lot of us thought we did.

OLBERMANN: Was that when you and your group pulled Hussein out of that hole in the ground?

CRUZ: And that is correct, to include as many years as this has been going on now, it's not just one year, it's been several. The more time... that's gone into it, the more things are falling out for families now.

OLBERMANN: Let me ask about and you this job search. It sounds like, and I'm sure you'd agree with me on this, that your resume is outstanding, captured Saddam Hussein, before that, you'd been a security guard at the World Trade Center on 9/11. You have computer skills. What has it been like going for a job? I mean, do they just want to talk to you and pat you on the back and then say, No, thanks? Or how has that been?

CRUZ: It kind of feels like it. I've gotten a lot of appreciation from a lot of jobs. The only thing I don't get is a call back. And, well, currently, now things have been changing a little bit. And I could really thank a lot of people for that.

OLBERMANN: What would you want potential employers to know about you? We're sort of giving you a period of time here to sell yourself on national TV, if that will help.

CRUZ: The best thing I can say, put me to work and I'll show what you I could do...

OLBERMANN: Is there a specific job you want out there?

CRUZ: My best thing would be working with the community, and within the government, that is.

OLBERMANN: Jeans Cruz, one of the soldiers who nabbed Saddam. Thanks greatly for your time, for your opinions, and all the best on the job search. And if we hear anything at this end, we'll get the information to you right away.

****

Wolfe? Paula? Hannity? O'Reilly? Chris? D'oh Donnell? Tim? Judy? Other sycophants? Look what your lack of journalistic integrity has brought the world. Look at where the world has gone because of your refusal to use any investigative skills. Look at the world that you have diminished and tarnished.

Then, look at the world Cindy Sheehan is trying to create.

You all should be ashamed.

Somehow, I doubt any of you are.