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Over at TPM reporter Greg Sargent's The Horse's Mouth blog, the latest wrinkle in the Bush Syrian Travel Hypocrisy Scandal is that not only is Bush dissing Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for meeting with Syrian officials even as three Republican congressmen are in Syria right now meeting with Syrian officials, but that Bush himself approved the GOP congressmen's trip!
While most of us who read the story tsk-tsked our national media for ignoring this, a commenter in the thread, owenz, wondered why Pelosi was seemingly silent on the issue: "Obviously, the media has done a pretty pathetic job here. But what's with the slow response from Pelosi's office, the DNC, and Congressional Democrats?"
Trouble is, she DID respond. She DID mention the presence of Congressman Joe Pitts (R-PA) and the other two Republican congressmen that are meeting with Assad in Syria. I gleaned this from other news stories as well as from the televised press conference she held.
But the GOP/Media Complex buried the lede.
"Buried the lede? What the heck does that mean?" Well, let me tell you…
Look at the AP story on this from April 3: The fact that Syria's president Hafez Assad met with Republican lawmakers — who the AP reporter, Zeina Karam (zeina@zeinakaram.com), chose not to name — is buried deep into the article, taking up two very short paragraphs of a 21-paragraph piece, instead of being put up top. The story is about three-quarters GOP spin, which the AP stenographer dutifully repeats for our consumption.
That's called "burying the lede" — and it violates the principle of the Pyramid Lead, the foundation of all modern journalistic writing worldwide.
The Pyramid Lead is the first thing a would-be journalist learns; it used to be taught in junior high school English classes as a fundamental principle of composition. It is based on the fact that most newspaper readers tend to read the first few sentences of a story before going on to something else. The idea is to summarize the key parts (or "lede") of a given story in one, maybe two sentences and lead off the story with those sentences: The casual reader will have then got the gist, if not the details.
Over and over and over again, the following principle is drummed into the young scrivener's head: Never. Bury. The Lede. Ever. Yet burying the lede is done time and time again in modern journalism, by its most prominent reporters, and it's not an accident. Recently, Nicole Belle at Crooks and Liars pointed out a particularly vile lede-burying committed by the ComPost (aka Washington Post) reporters Jonathan Weisman and Lyndsey Layton, as discovered by David Sirota.
Here is why deliberately burying the lede is so vile: If someone accuses that AP reporter of carrying water for Bush, the reporter can fire back: "Hey, I mentioned the GOP guys in Syria, didn't I?" Yeah, you did — but you buried that lede under mounds and mounds of Republican propaganda. (Oh, and by the way: Israel's acting president is praising Pelosi for her acting as a go-between with Syria and Israel, delivering messages from Israel's leaders to Assad. But you won't see this in the US TV news. Ever.)
Careful observers will recognize this as a variant of another CYA media maneuver — giving something that might irritate their masters only a miniscule amount of coverage, usually buried where the casual reader won't see it, as opposed to putting it above the fold on the front page. How many times have we gone up to reporters asking "Why haven't you covered Topic Such-and-Such?" only to be told that it was indeed "covered" — but, as it turns out, only briefly, and it never made drive-time radio or the evening TV news, which is where most Americans still get their news nowadays?
While burying the lede is the tool of choice of dishonest and disingenuous Republican-fluffers in the media, many GOP/Media Complex members don't even bother to get that fancy. They simply leave out the facts they don't like. We see this in how the AP's Jennifer Loven — who Bush called on first in his April 3 press conference — brought up Pelosi's trip but ignored the GOP presence in Syria. (Or how in a later story on Pelosi's trip, Zeina Karam doesn't even bother to mention the three GOP congressmen currently also meeting with Assad in Syria. ) Just another of the ways in which our media works to keep us misinformed.
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Fitz! Waxman! Oversight!
Nancy P!!!!!, Henry W!!!!
Four Things Bush Doesn’t Want You To Know About Pelosi’s Syria Visit
by Phoenix Woman
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/4/4/122921/8438
Phoenix Woman!!
Another great post!!
When Shrub responded to the news of Nancy P. going to Syria, he said it is counter productive. Now think back or got to http://www.truthdig.org and read the interview of Scott Ritter by Robert Scheer. in that interview lies the full story, and why Mdme. Speakers’ trip is ruining everything (to paraphrase) It is truly scary where the neo cons want to take this country. Hang Tough
Joe Pitts represents a portion of gerrymandered Berks County, PA, one of four, count ‘em, four House districts within the county.
That he couldn’t find his own ass with a compass and a chronometer of exacting precision goes without saying.
WTF is he doing in Syria ?
“take me to your lede-er”
If only these asshole Bushies were as good at running the country as they were at manipulating the media. They managed to cut education spending so much that there’s enough stupid people in the US to watch Fox and vote for them and call Democrats elitists when they have a thought that’s not “tax cut, terrorist, or 911.”
Remember the blossoming of journalism as a career after Watergate? I wonder what is attracting new students to
propagandajournalism schools now?Another thing the MSM is hiding…
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/4/4/14122/77671
Poor Bushie–outwitted by a grandmother from San Francisco, no less.
biff diggerence @
6
Exactly.
I can see the House Speaker going to Syria: She’s #3 in the presidential line of succession. But some doofus backbencher who needs instructions to breathe? Ya gotta be kidding me.
Fe @ 10
“Use your inside voice, George!”
The real question is why is Pelosi out doing her job, when Bush is pulling weeds in Crawford?
This guy has clocked fewer hours as President than most people do in their daily jobs.
Georgesimian @ 13
with the amount of damage he causes while on the job, maybe it’s a good thing that he’s “off”.
Georgesimian @
13
Good point, but I really don’t want Bush spending any more time at his “job” than absolutely necessary. Every on-the-job hour seems to result in a new FUBAR. In fact, Mr President, please consider taking a vacation for the next 21 months.
Blub: great minds think a bike.
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap…..-Syria.php
Great post, PW!
Actually, the term is “inverted” pyramid.
Hastert Traveled Abroad, Told Foreign Leaders Not To Listen To Clinton
angie @
17
Great catch, Angie!
Hey, should we start a meme that Nancy Pelosi helped free the British sailors? It’d be a lot truer than the crap the Bushies are trying to spew about her now.
Great Tom Tomorrow:Liiinky
Did anyone watch Blair’s statement about the sailors? It struck me that he looked really, really nervous. He sort of apologized (maybe in advance) that the West has no problem with the Iranian people, but that there were problems with the Iranian government, which he hoped would be worked out diplomatically in the future. I hope the horse hasn’t already left the barn. It reminded me so much of Bush saying that to the Iraqi people. I hope it is not a bad sign that Bush is going to Crawford…
ralphbon @
18
Actually, “inverted pyramid lead” — but it’s typically just called the “pyramid lead”. Hence the term “burying the lede/lead”.
And as a once-upon-a-time journalism student, the rule, as it was taught to me:
Who, What, When, Where, and Why — goes in the lead paragraph, should be restated in the middle of the article, and worked into the final paragraph.
Oh, yeah: If anyone wants any further proof that Dana P., Mouth-of-Sauron-in-training, is a total tool, check this out from the Lancaster, PA paper that mentions Bush’s approval of the Pitts visit to Syria:
Like I said: A total tool.
Georgesimian @
13
I think I prefer it when he’s in Crawford.
President Pelosi…has a really nice ring to it.
Brisingamen @ 24
Yup.
Of course, with the current crowd of propagandists, it’s “fill up the first dozen or so paragraphs with bogosities, and stick the lede somewhere unobtrusive”.
The first thing a totalitarian regime does is to ensure that they control the news and the means of broadcast. What with the bottom-feeders like Drudge and Rush, countless pundits and FAUX, the repubs, very own agit-prop organ, its difficult for me to see how the repug grip on the media is going to be broken. Particularly where the NY Times, WaPo, etc. have turned into pod-papers.
Possibly OT – Froomkin’s column today has, at the end, a quote from the NY Sun. They want Cheney to run for President. Not a joke. What Froomkin quotes from their op-ed:
“Were Mr. Cheney in the race, it’s hard to imagine that the president’s approval ratings would not be five or 10 points higher. The reason is that the administration would have a defender on the campaign trail as part of the public debate.
“Mr. Cheney has virtues as a candidate in his own right. He has foreign policy experience by virtue of having served as defense secretary, and he has economic policy experience, having served as a leading tax-cutter while a member of the House of Representatives. His wife, Lynne, would be an asset to the ticket in her own right.”
Compared to the current field, “Mr. Cheney is so much more experienced and shrewd a figure, one who could help settle some of the arguments about the Bush years in favor of Mr. Bush. A White House aiming to get Mr. Cheney elected could also avoid some of the hazards that befall lame-ducks — drift, brain drain, irrelevance.”
For a few years I worked at a small weekly paper in Texas. I moved to a larger metropolitan market in Phoenix and worked as a reporter for a chain of weeklies before they shifted their organization and laid off many people.
In Texas I worked my butt off but had very little editorial oversight– not exactly useful for a newbie. I always used the inverted pyramid lede, though. In Phoenix I got my chops into shape pretty quickly over stylistic issues, but the senior editorial staff said they favored the Wall Street Journal-style lede, in which the writer begins with an anecdote involving a specific person– say, a fisherman affected by new netting laws– and then moves on to the larger story of new netting laws.
This seemed somehow, er, fishy, then. I can see the point of involving the reader via someone they can relate to, but it dilutes the information in the story.
I fretted over this and an editor told me “You write just fine. But you write like you’re at a daily.” Another editor used to say “Well, there’s plenty of information here, but not enough story.”
These shenanigans don’t surprise me at all.
Gnome de Plume @
9
Cocktail weenies?
So McCain’s photo-op led to this?
This is so incredibly tragic and sickening if true.
P J Evans @ 30
I personally would love it if Shooter were the Rs prez candidate.
OT — More on USA firings
“Iglesias confirmed to NEWSWEEK that he was recently questioned by lawyers for the Office of Special Counsel, an independent federal watchdog agency, to determine if his dismissal was a violation of the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA), a federal law that prohibits job discrimination against members of the U.S. military.
Link
El Mocho @ 31
I always hated the WSJ style. I didn’t give a ff about their anecdotes. Kept skiing down paragraphs until I got to the real story. Sometimes it didn’t start until your turned to the inside page. Abysmal.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyo…..52851/6095
Priceless quote.
More Attorneygate:
link 1
link 2
That IS manure coming out of that tractor bed, isn’t it?
eCAHNomics @ 34
I encourage him to run. He needs the exercise.
twolf1 @
19
Yup. And don’t forget how Gingrich insisted on tagging along for Yitzhak Rabin’s funeral — and had a hissy fit on the plane ride back when Clinton wouldn’t kiss his ring.
Pelosi, in contrast, is acting with poise and bringing credit to the US. (And may have, as Angie hints, helped free the UK sailors.)
P J Evans@30 – It’s difficult to read a sentence that has both ‘Cheney’ and ‘virtue’ in it.
Mandrake @ 39
I think so, yes. ;-)
No more Global War on Terror:
http://www.militarytimes.com/n…..s_070403w/
Phoenix Woman @ 20
Most excellent meme, PW!!
twolf1@19 – we have all come to know that when Republicans do or have done what Democrats are criticised for doing, the Republicans are perfectly correct. That’s the guiding principle for Fox Noise and Comedian Limbaugh.
LS @
38
Thanks! How did you fix that?!
LS @ 44
yessssssssssss! thanks LS for bringing the good news here.
tee hee:
LS @ 44
From the article:
“Mom! MOOOOOOOM! You can’t take away my GWOT! It’s not fair!“
Um, yeah.
angie @ 48
This will not stand. Bush loves being a war preznit!
So…if there’s really no war, then W can’t hide behind the AUMF on all those civil rights issues..right?
El Mocho @
31
Ooooh, you just mentioned one of my pet peeves. This initial folksy anecdote, meant to somehow “hook” the reader (like a fish!) with unthreatening charm.
I absolutely HATE that crap. I want frickin’ NEWS, just the facts, not some episode from a teevee melodrama.
I find it downright insulting, but almost everybody does it. This “stylistic” change began, IIRC, in the eighties. Right around the time Reagan was telling us all those folksy stories he either ripped out of Reader’s Digest or made up wholesale to suit his moronic base (so-called “welfare queens” driving Cadillacs!).
I also find all the incessant chatter about “narratives” somewhat alarming, like we all need a good bedtime story or something. I realize the Dems have to compete in this “narrative” arena, but I don’t have to like it very much.
I guess this makes me really, really old-fashioned. I like to enjoy my “narratives” at the movies, and I like my journalism to consist of facts and reasoned fact-based analysis.
The general point is good. However, the final form of a story is not always chosen by the reporter. I’m convinced that a lot of bad journalism is the responsibility of anonymous editors higher up the ladder (and closer to management.) They decide how long a piece will be, what page it will be on, and what the headline will be, but they also rewrite articles drastically if necessary, and burying the lede can be part of that.
This is not to deny that a lot of reporters know what’s expected of them and either self-censor or else pitch in enthusiastically with the canned Republican storyline. In the case of an unknown reporter, though, I think that it’s better to reserve judgement about their own part in deciding what goes on the page.
I’d love to see someone more knowledgeable than me write about this in detail.
Quzi @ 35
WOOO HOOO!!!
Phoenix Woman says: “The Pyramid Lead is the first thing a would-be journalist learns; it used to be taught in junior high school English classes as a fundamental principle of composition. “
I’m fifty-four years old and I can still hear Miss Swinford in 7th grade and Mrs. Stanley in the 8th grade: “Tell ‘em what you’re going to tell ‘em. Tell ‘em. Then tell ‘em what you told ‘em.”
dakine01 @ 54
I love that!!
How do you fund the GWOT that isn’t?
So CNN’s next story is on Nancy Pelosi in Syria, and the anchor’s lede-in before the commercial is to ask, “Is she becoming the most controverial speaker ever?”
Well, this pic looks really controversial. The highest ranking woman in US history treated with respect by the leader of a Muslim nation.
And here’s Nancy showing Bush how to look Presidential.
And there’s another pic I can’t find of Nancy at a Syrian market which is very impressive.
Grandma for President.
LS @ 57
You fund each operation specifically. Iraq has its funding, as does Afghanistan, Kosovo (if that’’s still active), and every other operation. Each action is its own line item so that the costs of the action can be tracked separately and discretely.
dakine01 circa 55
“I can still hear Miss Swinford in 7th grade and Mrs. Stanley in the 8th grade: “Tell ‘em what you’re going to tell ‘em. Tell ‘em. Then tell ‘em what you told ‘em.”
I must have had the same teachers a couple of years earlier. “Say what you’re going to say, say it, then say what you said” They also said, “copying from a book or article is CHEATING. Copying from 50 books and articles is RESEARCH!”
dakine01 @ 58
Little Boots won’t like that. His favorite method of funding is the Black Budget — a.k.a. The Off-the-Books Books.
dakine01 @
59
The beauty of what you are saying is that they are “operations” and “actions” – not declared wars, which means W is the operation president or the action president and those don’t denote war powers do they.
I hope you will please forgive me for this drive-by but something very important is happening that I have been working on for years…please, one more time, click and call:
http://network.bestfriends.org…..13622.html
thank you for all you do
LS @ 57
Well, first of all you make it part of the regular Defense Department Appropriations bill. If the Idiot-in-Chief had done that last year when funding for the current fiscal year was approved, he wouldn’t be asking for the Supplemental today.
Lack of planning on his part does not consititute an emergency in the eyes of Congress.
You know, I hesitate to bring this up, because I know it’s a touchy subject around here, but I actually have to give Chris Matthews some credit for several points he made on his show yesterday.
First, David Schuster’s report did bring up the matter of the Republican visit to Syria. To wit:
Then there was this exchange between Chris and Buchanan:
Then a bit later:
And the last good zinger:
Credit where credit is due. This is why I still watch the show, even when I’m frequently disappointed or ready to throw stuff at the TV.
i am a newspaper reader and even i can detect bullshit masquerading as “news” – those articles i skip as well as repug talking points in editorials tho theyre opinion pieces.
love the manure spreader!
MsK8 @61 says: “Little Boots won’t like that. His favorite method of funding is the Black Budget — a.k.a. The Off-the-Books Books.”
He’ll have to learn to get over it. Or to put it a tad more crudely, he can go p*ss up a rope. He’s been using these “emergency funding requests” for almost six years. It’s about damn time they became a regular part of the budget and get scoped out in a relatively coherent and (fat chance!) honest way.
spiderpaws –
Thanks for the heads up! I had heard of the earlier good news, but didn’t know that the bastards had found a work-around to keep the slaughter going. It’s evil.
And one of the commenters at your linked site hit the nail on the head — USDA is determined to ignore and circumvent the express will of the American people on horse slaughter.
The Pyramid Lede has been replaced with the “Eye in the Pyramid” Lede.
The media masters are irritated when the truth is told by their “journalists”?
Given:
and,
Therefore, the media masters are attempting to subvert our democracy, behaving in a treasonous manner and betraying the public trust. At a minimum, their privilege of broadcasting on our public-owned airwaves must be revoked.
- Tom
In #65 Buchanan is lying — Defense can move funds from one area to another, and keep the troops in Iraq. They’ve done so in the past.
Now, that does mean that something else they’re doing won’t be funded, and may have to furlough its employees. Does anyone remember the base in Texas that couldn’t pay its utility bills last year?
Lede-burying is like the Friday night document dump. Plump up yr haystack high around that pesky needle!
Ann –
Hope you caught my little note to you in the comments yesterday:
Thanks for the email! Much appreciated, though I haven’t had time to write back yet. Had a very early doctor appt today, and am about to do the daily swim followed by a nap — only got 3 hours of sleep overnight.
Didn’t want you to think I’m ignoring you! Hope you are well.
Spiderpaws @63 – thanks for the link.
Scarecrow, is this the picture of Nancy you were looking for?
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04…..elosi.html
I can’t figure out why the Democrats don’t tell the President that if he wants supplemental funding for the troops, then he’s going to have to consent to raising taxes, especially on the rich and the corporations that he so dearly loves, and clamp down on the overpayments to Halliburton and its subsidiaries. They’ve already said that they’re dedicated to finding ways to pay for things that are wanted, and we all know that this administration has already cut funding for social programs and built up the deficit to the nth degree, so the next step is the suicide pill. Make him swallow it.
angie @ 76
That’s the one! All Bush and Cheney can do is grumble about how counterproductive it is for a high US official — a Democrat, and a woman — to bring a message of goodwill to another country with whom the ISG recommended we start talking.
I hope she comes back and tells both of them to grow up or go to their rooms.
mayan @ 29
This is why I started reading blogs like FDL. It’s how I get my news. And others will find their way to the blogs, as well.
Angie 76,
That is a great article. I didn’t realize Henry Waxman was with her.
during wh or other pressers – the thing that disturbs me greatly is the absence of tough follow-up questions – and if a person is ignored i’d think that another would do a folloe-up but it seldom happens – if only i can have access to pressers like gannon – oh i’m no gay hooker so that lets me out…….
FYI, A new thread upstairs.
RIP Martin Luther King on this sad anniversary.
substitute Iraq/Afghanistan for Vietnam in his speech and see how apropos this still is:
http://www.democracynow.org/ar…..04/1343231
The LA Times had the story about the GOP congressmen right up under the headline, in a subhead. Kudos to them for getting it closer to right.
chimpy is funding the war on the backs of the middle class of which i USED TO BE – no sacrifice needed for wealthy folk but we get hit with taxes in form of very high oil and gas prices no more affordable rents forcing people to share living space – and rely on food stamps – god i cant wait til bushco is OUT of the WH!!!!!!!!!!
Speaker Pelosi is my president.
Mrs. K8: During my time of unemployment, I had a chance to pick up The Image by Daniel Boorstin. Some of it is dated, but I recognized some general principles and grimaced.
Boorstin explains that while demand for news grew, reporters found reality lacking: the dreaded “Slow News Day.” Therefore, they began reporting and elevating the mundane non-happening to the status of an actual event.
I think that people fed on this diet enough to grow restless. They not only had information about important things, but also things of stultifying dullness. Information alone no longer worked as a product. It needed to be more entertaining.
Recently, a paper in the chain I used to work for ran a story on development near my neighborhood, in mountains I’d dearly love not to see surrounded by houses. I know the topography quite well. I’d also reported on development further west and knew the area had trouble getting water.
I dropped the report an e-mail. Not only did he spell the mountains’ name wrong in the story, he couldn’t tell me exactly where the development was supposed to go. These are basic facts I wouldn’t have thought twice about including.
And this is community journalism. I don’t think that story could have found a more precise target audience than me, dealing with things I cared about, and I still wouldn’t have considered myself “informed” by it. Forget national journalism about distant events that impact my life. I can’t even count on quality reporting in my own back yard.
Here’s the perfect response to that AP reporter and other lede-buriers:
“Yes, yes I did. It was on display on the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.’”
Burying the lede?
What! I’m shocked! Shocked I say!
The stenographers Corporo-Media would never do anything like propagandizing and/or shape “news” stories for a pResident named Bush would they? [/snark]
Would they?
Mrs. K8 @ 74
Hi Mrs. K8, (waving)
I had a Dr. appt this morning myself for something called a Doppler, a test to check for any possible blood clots in my legs. I know how it is to be busy and not have a chance to write, so I’m not going anywhere, I’ll be here when you get to it. Hope you’re feeling better yourself.
speaker pelosi is being very gracious in the face of attacks by bushco cuz she dared to go to syria y hides out and dialogue with assad while chimpy hides out on the “ranch” ignoring the repugs who’re in syria also – hmmmm
dakine01 @ 55
The 60 Minutes formula.
the full presser in 2 parts and Michael Ware’s rebuke and more can be viewed here.
http://www.youtube.com/profile…..tNutmegger
just scroll down a bit for all the videos.
whoops– my 93 was for the next thread, sorry.
Been away but I’m back. A thought, raised by George Bush’s extremely unhelpful comments last week on the plight of our sailors. During their whole time of captivity I couldn’t help thinking all moral authority the US or UK might have had about taking prisoners in doubtful circumstances was negatived by extraordinary rendition and GITMO. Remember when we always used to say that one man’s terrorist was another’s freedom fighter? Now, is one man’s hostage another’s enemy combatant?
Today’s “Poll Question of the Day” at c-span.org is: “Do you approve or disapprove of Speaker’s Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Syria?”
I emailed them asking if tomorrow’s question will be: Do you approve or disapprove of the Republican representatives who visited Syria April 1st?”
Maybed that was the question yesterday and I missed it. Anyone got the numbers on that poll?
Hafez Assad has been dead a few years now. *cough*
Speaking of burying the lede, I was working at a hotel a number of years ago, and there was this massive pro-life conference, over 50,000 people went through the place in one weekend, politicians, journalists, academics, doctors, lawyers, assorted religious leaders, even a couple of celebrities. The closing banquet had over 2500 people, many of the weekend’s luminaries.
There was no news coverage of the conference other than that a group of about a dozen GLAD protestors had gathered outside. The conference was newsworthy, and had a special detachment of detectives attending, protecting dignitaries, several bomb threats had apparently be made by ACT-UP.
At another large conference some months later, a larger group of protestors gathered, and had been flinging condoms filled with blood and feces and shards of glass at the conference attendees, on child was struck but not injured.
Neither conference made any headlines, but a small article buried deeper in the paper made a brief mention that there was a protest against the pro-life conference.
Burying the lede is not something the GOP invented, but they sure have become adept at it.
This is not hearsay, I was working hotel security, and saw first hand, I remember the news coverage at the time, watching to see if there was going to be any reporting, since some impressive people had rolled through town for this event.
If you want to criticize the Republics for being unprofessional dirty tricksters, go ahead, they certainly deserve it, but suborning the media is a practice that is well established in other circles also, yes Bush is a hypocritical spoiled brat psychopath, and the GOP-NeoCons are bad bad people, but their dirty tricks media methods are also evident in the debate surround reproductive ‘freedom’. Failing to recognize that is similarly hypocritical.
See, George, this is how it works when we use our WORDS first.
“Burying the lede” is the equivalent of burying a news article on an inside page, say A13.
In fact, the “culture of corruption” Republican media hacks have made a Spin Art of often doing both at the same time, having only the Republican side presented on the front page, while the “buried lede” not only appears at the end of the article, but appears on a deeply-buried inside page, which any diligent reader must hunt down to finish reading the article. Aaah, there’s the Democratic response.
It’s both interesting and disgusting to see Republican media hacks resorting to Communist-style tactics, isn’t it? Thank God for the internet and progressive bloggers who cut through the right-wing crap. Kudoes to FDL.
We’re probably in EPU territory here, but I wanted to recommend a place to recommend the best blogs on the politics of 2008
This site allows you to review news articles or news blogs and assess the degree to which they really are “fair and balanced” in the true sense of those words. The best articles get circulated widely.
Bob in HI