The blanket coverage of London terrorism is a terrible blow to Nancy Grace, Arubans, meteorologists, shark specialists, sexual predator experts, Tom Cruise, creationists, anti-sodomites and all other culture warriors and whackball fear-mongers who until now have owned the media.
All day long, administration leakers jerked the media's chain. "It's Judge Edith 1," they whispered, on double super duper background. Then: "No, it's Judge Edith 2!" If the day had been longer, no doubt the Bushies would have tossed even more red herrings to the clapping seals. The Washington press corps, nanoseconds after being forced to admit how humiliatingly it had been spun by Turd Blossom, just lapped it all up.
The launch of Discovery brought an undeniable Buzz Lightyear rush. But the NASA voiceover that accompanied it -- "beginning America's new journey to the moon, Mars and beyond!" -- was a rude reminder of Bush's "national greatness" strategy to deflect our attention from the mess he's made on Earth. Dreams of the Red Planet are the contemporary equivalent of Roman circuses. I'm all for galactic exploration, but the Shuttle and the International Space Station are relics, Tomorrowland curios from the Jetsons era.
