Pointing to the most extreme scenario--total suppression of free speech--and trying to use its absence to prove that the Bush Regime is making no attempt at all to manipulate information is just plain silly.

Need I remind you that the White House has been caught with several "journalists" in its pocket?

Need I remind you that several months back the RNC hired a Director of Blogging (or words to that effect) to coordinate the message from the RightWing blogosphere?

Need I remind you that the Pentagon is spending millions to plant its own stories in Iraqi media? Manipulating the enemy's information flow is considered a legitimate tactic in wartime, and Republicans certainly believe that they're at war with non-Republicans.

You fail to praise the Bush Regime at the oddest times, TB. Can't you credit them with a bit more subtlety than simply trying to shut down dissent? Perhaps they realize that people would notice? The term "disinformation" does not by any stretch of the imagination mean shutting down dissenting voices. It usually encompasses the tactic of allowing the voices to continue but to distort the words and to try to discredit the speaker through any means, fair or foul. It includes referring to honest dissenters as "tinfoil-hatters" and labelling their words "screeching".

One of the subtler ways to engage in a disinformation campaign is to selectively enhance the most strident voices and suppress the reasonable ones, to paint your opponent as unreasonable and irrational. The fact that the "tinfoil-hatters" are still "screeching" might only mean that they're the ones that the Bush Regime wants to keep on babbling. Lord knows, they have an army of publicists in the RightWingers who dutifully publicize their ravings far and wide.

It's kinda like the way you seek out the craziest people on the Left, then point to them as representative of all us Liberals.

And yet, it doesn't really matter. The American people have become fed up with Bush and Republicans in general, and no amount of spin and disinformation will salvage the next election. You won't be able to spin your way to victory this time.

Nice try, though.