Fred Barnes has a new article out in The Weekly Standard on the origins of the surge in Iraq, but controversy has erupted in left-wing circles over an aside: "Rather than a turning point, the events of June prompted a fleeting moment of optimism. The week before Camp David, Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the al Qaeda leader in Iraq, had been killed. (Cheney has a piece of the house where Zarqawi died on display at his residence.)"

On Wednesday night, mad-dog radio host Mike Malloy referred to the Standard article by "truly certifiable maniac" Fred Barnes. "This guy is beyond crazy," charged Malloy."I'm sure he eats children's arms and legs for afternoon snacks. This guy is insane." As he described the Barnes passage that that Cheney has a Zarqawi-house souvenir, Malloy added: "I'm surprised that Cheney doesn't have a piece of Zarqawi's body."

Catching up with an article in last week's Weekly Standard (but with Mitt Romney making his last stand in Tuesday's Michigan primary it remains topical), veteran Washington journalist Fred Barnes, a regular panelist on FNC's Special Report, asserted that the press corps “loathes Romney for moving to the right on social issues.” In “The All-Too-Resistible Romney: He has everything going for him but voters,” Barnes, Executive Editor of the magazine, marveled:

I've been amazed at the raw antipathy that so many otherwise reasonable people in the media feel toward Romney. The word they use is "inauthentic." But all presidential candidates are inauthentic to one degree or another. Even Mr. Straight Talk, Senator John McCain, talks differently today about tax cuts and immigration than he used to, but the press doesn't hector him about it. There's something unique about Romney that repels the press...

Describing the agenda of questions CNN chose to pose, during its Wednesday night Republican presidential debate with YouTube, as “completely different” from those forwarded to Democrats in July, Fred Barnes, on Thursday's Special Report on FNC, cited the contrast in questions about the military and Iraq as demonstrating how CNN picked the questioners to “screw Republicans” and “boost Democrats.” Mara Liasson of NPR echoed the sentiment, recalling that the questions put to Democrats “were about global warming and health care and education, all kind of Democratic issues” and so they “weren't challenging the basic principles of the Democratic Party,” but “there were lots of questions last night that were” meant to undermine GOP principles.

Earlier in the day, on The Weekly Standard's Web site, Barnes, Executive Editor of the magazine, hypothesized: “I don't know if the folks who put the debate together were purposely trying to make the Republican candidates look bad, but they certainly succeeded.” He asserted that the YouTube video submission questions CNN decided to air reflected “the issues, in the view of liberals and many in the media, on which Republicans look particularly unattractive.”

This should certainly raise the eyebrows of folks around the country who believe Fox News is too conservative.

On "Fox News Sunday," Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson told a somewhat stunned Chris Wallace that FNC is biased against his campaign.

I kid you not.

As reported hours ago by TheHill.com (video available here):