From the Washington Post.

Obviously, the order of the day in the Democratic media is "destroy Bush at all costs." Unlike earlier times, the media apparently no longer feels it has to pretend objectivity, and feels comfortable revealing that most media people would rather cut off an arm with a rusty hacksaw than see a Republican in any national office whatsoever, much less the office of President. They want Bush politically dead, dead, dead, and have abandoned any attempt at subtlety.

...Bush is sparing himself an avalanche of negative coverage portraying him as clueless on the economy, ethically challenged as a businessman and in danger of meeting his father's fate as a one-termer.



All this for a president riding high at 70 percent in the polls.

"There are probably a fair number of people in the press who don't think he deserves to be that high," says Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol. "There's a real eagerness to find any straw -- or invent a couple of straws in the wind -- to claim it's all falling apart for him."



Gee, you think?

Newsweek's cover -- "Like Father, Like Son?" -- questioned whether the younger Bush would also be a war hero and domestic flop. " 'Crime in the suites' is finally stripping some of the Teflon off this president," the magazine says.



..."Both sides believe accumulating economic bad news may be reaching critical mass, creating a public disenchantment that could stick to the Bush administration and congressional Republicans in November," The Washington Post reported.



Especially with as many people as there are in the media thickly applying the superglue

Jonathan Alter, co-author of the Newsweek cover story, says of the coverage: "I don't think it's turned negative. I think it's turned normal. He got an exceptional ride. Bush was treated much better after September 11 than Roosevelt was during World War II. I don't even think his father was treated with as much reverence when he was at 90 percent after the Gulf War."

Okay, one guy still pretending objectivity. Bias? Who us?

Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of the Nation, says the press was all but mesmerized once the war on terrorism was launched. "Like a market correction, it's a media correction," she says. "It's long overdue. We've seen cheerleading for Bush for many months that precluded a more critical-minded journalistic approach."

She, on the other hand, doesn't care if you see the knife coming. She works for the Nation after all.

She is also tired of the media's "continued harping" on Bush's approval rating. "The limitations of polling need to be explored," vanden Heuvel says.



The media's poll fixation does carry echoes of the Clinton presidency. The press was constantly kicking Bill Clinton around over Whitewater, fundraising scandals and the Monica Lewinsky mess, and surveys showed most people found him untrustworthy. But his job approval rating remained high.



Oddly, back then I heard absolutely nothing from the media about how "the limitations of polling need to be explored."

These days, journalists are not only questioning Bush's responsibility for the sinking stock market; they have also resurrected questions about his 1989 stock dealings as a director of Harken Energy, and about Vice President Cheney's tenure as Halliburton Co.'s CEO.

These "questions" have been answered and explained in great detail again and again. And again and again, the media have smiled widely at the explainers, ripped up the explanations, and gone ahead with the innuendos.

In a New York Times-CBS poll this month, 48 percent of those surveyed said they believed Bush was hiding something about his Harken dealings and 9 percent said he was mostly lying -- nearly six in 10 concluding that the president isn't coming clean.

Probably won't hear anything from vanden Heuvel about how this particular poll needs to be "explored."

Yet the same poll gave Bush a 70 percent approval rating. In a sense, Bush has become Clintonized -- supported by most Americans even though they have some doubts about his conduct. And the media no longer give him the benefit of the doubt.

Translation: the media no longer feel the public will come down on them like a ton of bricks for attacking Bush, and now feel safe in doing so. They NEVER gave him the benefit of the doubt.

Says Alter: "Republicans on Capitol Hill are moaning and groaning that they could lose control of the Congress. . . . If that's not a story, I don't know what is."