According to Dana Milbank in the Washington Post, Democrats [are] Conflicted on Playing Rough, a headline that should be absolutely mystifying to anyone who has watched American politics over the past 40 years. From LBJ's "Daisy" ad to Ted Kennedy's assault on Robert Bork to the "Bush = Hitler" meme of the 2004 campaign, any conflicts that Democrats have had have been resolved, quickly and quietly, in favor of taking the low road.

None of which has prevented spirited whining from the left every time the Republicans dare to play rough. Milbank's piece offers, without a hint of skepticism, both the Democratic self-congratulatory "we only take the high road" and more whining about the ads that they've had to put up with. The trigger for this piece was the scurrilous and false NARAL ad, an ad that even CNN eventually decided that it could not, in good conscience, keep running.

A Washington Post story for tomorrow (Sunday, 14 August) demonstrates spectacular ignorance of American post-war histories, with a dollop of political bias added.

Here is the entire lead paragraph of “Sayonara to Japanese Pacifism?” by Ayako Doi and Kim Willenson:

“In 2002, as the Bush administration prepared to invade Iraq, Washington policymakers reassuringly insisted that once combat was over, they would repeat America's post-World War II occupation success story -- the reformation of Japan. The flaws in that design, though, were twofold: Not only did Iraq turn out to be a very different sort of country, but these days, the success of the postwar remaking of Japan itself seems to be partly unraveling.”

The writers cite no names of policymakers who compared Iraq to Japan. As I and other writers based in history have noted, the proper comparison was to Germany, not Japan. In Japan the Americans made the wise choice not to depose the Emperor. The Emperor, in turn, urged his people to accept and cooperate with the Americans. As a result, there were almost no incidents against General MacArthur’s occupation and reformation of Japan.

On August 11, 2005, "The Phildelphia Daily News" placed political correctness above public safety in its article, "Teen Thuggary in Chestnut Hill."

Due to the particularly violent nature of these crimes, including the bloody beating of a 42 year old "mentally impared" man, a 37 year old woman being shoved violently to the ground to steal her purse, and five criminals punching of a man in the face and then "the attacker and his four friends kick[ing] the victim repeatedly before stealing a cell phone and a wallet," it would seem to be only common sense that the "Daily News" would give a description of the attackers. How else can the people of Chestnut Hill keep alert, aid police in their investigations, or avoid danger?

The three-ring circus that has opened in Crawford (the first in history in which all of the acts are clowns) is a wonderful example of what happens when you have a bored press corps.  After so many days of standing around in the hot sun interviewing each other, along comes Cindy Sheehan to make all their dreams come true.  They finally have a story, and if it has the potential to make the president look bad, all the better.  The White House press corps loves that kind of stuff.

I first saw this coming last Sunday when I signed on to AOL and the Crawford campout was the lead item on AOL news.  At that point there had been no significant national press coverage of Ms. Sheenan, so I questioned whether this story was worthy of showing up on the front page of every AOL user who signed on that day.  As the week has played out it has become obvious that the story was going to have legs, whether deserved or not.

Yesterday I noted that the New York Times had "cleaned up" an Al Franken quote in a story on the Air America funding scandal. The Times has issued a correction, acknowledging that, and supplying the complete and correct quote.

An article yesterday about state and city investigations of a loan made by a Bronx social service agency to the liberal radio network Air America quoted incorrectly from comments made on the air by Al Franken, the host of an Air America program. Referring to Evan M. Cohen, a former official of the network whom Mr. Franken accused of having engineered the loan, from the Gloria Wise Boys and Girls Club, Mr. Franken said: "I don't know why they did it, and I don't know where the money went. I don't know if it was used for operations, which I imagine it was. I think he was robbing Peter to pay Paul." (He did not say: "I don't know why he did it. I don't know where the money went. I don't know if it was used for operations. I think he was borrowing from Peter to pay Paul.")

The Washington Post mentions that today in Crawford, Texas, there will be a counterdemonstration to the one conducted by anti-war mom Cindy Sheehan and her political allies.

"[T]he Heart of Texas chapter of FreeRepublic.com, an online conservative forum, has scheduled a demonstration here for Saturday to counteract Sheehan's protest and show support for Bush and the war."

With journalists breathlessly monitoring her every word and making breaking news out of the monumental event that "Bush motorcade passes anti-war mom's protest," we'll see how the media cover a counterprotest in the same city.

Recently exposed here by numerous blog posts on Newsbusters is the media's obsession with Military-mom-gone Anti-Bush in an attempt to portray a mass movement of military families turning against our fight in Iraq. Most past evidence indicates that military families and the military believe in our cause and in President Bush despite not receiving non-stop media coverage. (Probably because they would not want it in the first place.)

Some Blasts from the Past are regarding the military, their families and President Bush. (Families who are never spotted except in polling data.)

(Oct. 15, 2004) AP (Via CBS) military election polling: