It’s irritating and borderline repulsive that Chi Trib has run nothing of its own on Sen. Harry Reid’s saying the Iraq war is lost, just an AP story 4/20 about Bush denying the claim, responding in gentlemanly fashion:
“I respect the Democratic leadership,” he said. “We have fundamental disagreements about whether or not helping this young democracy is . . . the consequences of failure or success . . . .”
I did clean that up a bit: AP unsurprisingly lingered on the warts and blemishes of Bush’s spoken word.
The Trib, on the other hand, protected Reid on the day, of the AP story — Gonzales in the dock was Trib editors’ interest — running nothing in hard copy.
This is how it’s done. Reid commits a major gaffe from which he backtracked within hours, but nothing is said. Today we have him featured, statesmanlike, on P-1 with his measured comments about Bush and the war.
Chi Trib just knows what’s fit to print, doesn’t it?
Blithe Spirit 