Welcome to 201k.com - A Commonwealth Perspective.

Paul Krugman, the second greatest living American, writes today what millions of Americans have known for four years: that the mainstream press coverage of George W. Bush has been a fraud from the beginning. Of Wednesday's Times mea culpa over their coverage of the run-up to the Iraq war, Krugman writes:

...it's not just Iraq, and it's not just The Times. Many journalists seem to be having regrets about the broader context in which Iraq coverage was embedded: a climate in which the press wasn't willing to report negative information about George Bush.

Let's hope so. One's thing's for sure: the Times' readers haven't been fooled. Of the nine letters to the editor on the mea culpa only two accept it unconditionally; the other seven rightly note its obvious problems: too little too late, no acceptable explanation for the reasons, no willingness to name those obviously most to blame, and no willingness to face the much wider scope that Krugman nails on the head.

Moreover, Eric Boehlert's excellent comparison of the Times' mea culpa on Iraq's WMD to its mea culpa on Wen Ho Lee takes the sublime to the ridiculous, and left us wondering if the Times' stuffy self-righteousness can survive the "cut & paste" Internet age.

It is our opinion that the Times, by not sufficiently explaining why its coverage was so biased for war -- the only reason suggested, that "editors...were perhaps too intent on rushing scoops into the paper" doesn't come close to explaining why, for instance, "articles based on dire claims about Iraq tended to get prominent display, while follow-up articles that called the original ones into question were sometimes buried [or not reported at all]" -- leaves itself vulnerable to less charitable theories. Perhaps they recognize this.

But it is another Krugman line, noting the decreasing effectiveness of the right's usual bullying techniques, that most caught our attention:

Amazing things have been happening lately. The usual suspects have tried to silence reporting about prison abuses by accusing critics of undermining the troops -- but the reports keep coming.

Earlier this week the Boston Globe's resident reactionary Jeff Jacoby wrote an absolutely despicable "web exclusive" screed on the paper's website Boston.com (perhaps the editors didn't want to dirty the paper with it). A little taste will give you the idea:

Ted Kennedy's anti-American slander
By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist - May 25, 2004

TWO WEEKS ago Senator Ted Kennedy uttered what may turn out to be the single most disgusting remark made about the United States in the course of the Iraq War. The reaction to his slander - or rather, the lack of reaction - speaks volumes about the moral bankruptcy of the American left.

Speaking in the Senate on May 10, Kennedy had this to say about the Abu Ghraib prison scandal:

''On March 19, 2004, President Bush asked, 'Who would prefer that Saddam's torture chambers still be open?' Shamefully, we now learn that Saddam's torture chambers reopened under new management - US management.''

...Incredibly, the senior senator from Massachusetts really was equating the disgraceful mistreatment of a few Iraqi prisoners by a few American troops with the unspeakable sadism, rape, and mass murder that had been routine under Saddam Hussein.

It doesn't get any better after that. Here indeed is some bullying.

But you know what? Screw the bullies. Here's two letters that 201k readers sent the Globe on Tuesday, and which we offer as a templates:

To the Editor,

Jacoby can spare us the phony outrage over Sen. Kennedy's remarks. The Abu Ghraib prison scandal is the natural result of a morally bankrupt war propagated by a morally bankrupt administration, and more Americans are coming to recognize it everyday despite the best efforts of Jacoby, and others, to conflate blind acquiescence with patriotism.

First the administration and its apologists tried to blame a few soldiers for the abuse; now Jacoby is trying to shift attention to Sen. Kennedy, who, like many Americans, knows just how disastrous this abuse is for the U.S., and how imperative it is that we get to the root of its causes.

Unless Jacoby and his ilk have their way, the American public will soon learn that the abuses at Abu Ghraib were not isolated, were not the work of "a few bad apples", and, unfortunately, may have actually been Bush administration policy.

And as they learn that, Americans will rightfully assume their role as final judge and jury of this administration's decisions and actions. Whether Jeff Jacoby likes it or not.

Facing unpleasant realities is the responsibility of the self-governed. Jacoby can huff and puff, but he can't change that. Americans must learn the truth--and they owe a debt of gratitude to Sen. Kennedy for speaking it.

Regards...

To: jacoby@globe.com
Subject: Your anti-Kennedy op-ed piece

I've looked at the pictures from the Abu Ghraib prison. I share Mr. Kennedy's views on the Abu Ghraib crimes and the subsequent public relations disaster. We went into Iraq promising to remove the torturers from power. We succeeded and then we proceed to torture the people ourselves. We even tortured people in the same prison in which they were tortured under Saddam. We were even stupid enough to take pictures of the torture and our stupidity continued when we allowed the pictures to leak out to the press. The damage we've done to the image of America doesn't seem reversible. What a horrible situation. You think that we can't "equate" Saddam's atrocious tortures to the much lesser tortures perpetrated by our American soldiers? While it is true that Sadam did many, many worse things to his own people (many unbelievably horrible things) he was not American. Our soldiers represent the American way to the Iraqi people and they are there as their rescuers.

There are supposed to be clear differences between Americans and animals like Saddam. One of those many, many differences is that Americans don't torture our prisoners. These differences are very, very important to me and (I would hope) to most other Americans. I can't imagine an America that accepts the fact that the difference between Saddam and George W. Bush is that Saddam's prison guards kill their prisoners on purpose and Bush's only kill them accidentally when we're trying to bruise or humiliate them. That is NOT my America. That is not the land of the free and the home of the brave. God would never bless an America like that.

JF

201k believes that the wheels are falling off the Bush administration's cart of lies -- and all the king's liars and all the king's hacks won't be able to keep them on much longer.

Remember "Rock 'em-Sock 'em Robots"? Keep swinging, folks--the robot's head is about to pop.