AS I'VE MADE CLEAR IN THE PAST, I'm one of those who believes that the Fourth Estate gets more grief than it deserves from both sides of the aisle. But that doesn't mean that a professional media analyst like the WaPo's Howard Kurtz -- a man who gets paid to think deeply and well about these sorts of issues -- has any business cavalierly dismissing any and all Democratic press criticism as so much political hot air.

The bottom line is this: There's still a huge amount of post-Iraq anger out there toward Bush, and liberals are frustrated that the red part of the country doesn't share their view. So the press must be doing a lousy job, right?

The press performance in covering this tightly disciplined administration has been far from perfect, especially on Iraq. But it's worth remembering that during the Clinton years, it was conservatives who saw the media as being embarrassingly soft on the White House.

Jeebus, Kurtz. Brent Bozell is usually more thoughtful (and convincing) than that. . . .

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