MRC president L. Brent Bozell III had his Letter to the Editor published in Saturday's Washington Post. He objected to liberal Post columnist E.J. Dionne trying to make a mountain out of the molehill of one liberal bishop granting an interview to one liberal Catholic magazine. Dionne did not note that this same bishop, so nervous about the bishops being used by political partisans "far to the right," delighted liberals by attacking the Paul Ryan budget.

Dionne wrote the conservative bishops who are "eagerly picking fights with President Obama....have angered more progressive Catholics and led to talk among the disgruntled faithful of the need for a 'Catholic spring' to challenge the hierarchy’s shift to the right." So now the Catholic hierarchy is like Arab dictators? Brent wrote in reply:

Yet more evidence of pathologies that roil the liberal, uh, mind.

MSNBC, America's closest approximation yet to Pravda (though not for lacking of trying, New York Times), did something curious but characteristic Wednesday night during the hour-long hyperventilation known as "The Ed Show." (video after page break)

On Sunday's "Meet the Press," Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne wheeled out the typical Democrat talking point that President Obama can't get anything accomplished because of Republican obstructionism in Congress.

Not buying this nonsense was the Wall Street Journal's Peggy Noonan who smartly responded, "A leader leads. Part of the president's problem is that he has never, from day one, been able to really pull in bipartisan support, either make Republicans afraid of him or want to follow him. He's never been able to do it" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Having read E.J. Dionne's Wednesday column in the Washington Post (HT Jim Taranto at the Wall Street Journal's Best of the Web), I am sooooo comforted -- not. Dionne assures his readers that "Al-Qaeda is a dangerous enemy. But our country and the world were never threatened by the caliphate of its mad fantasies." Thus, the last 10 years of the "war on terrorism" (lowercase letters and quote marks are his) have apparently largely been a waste of time and treasure, which is why, on the tenth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks, Dionne asserts that "we need to leave the day behind," and relegate it to "a simple day of remembrance."

Dionne is of course entitled to his opinions but not his facts. In addition to dangerously underestimating global jihad's devastating potential, Dionne overestimated what he must believe is a "lost decade" media meme, and completely misinterpreted the meaning of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. What follows are excerptes from Dionne's column (bolds and numbered tags are mine):

Right-leaning New York Times columnist Ross Douthat was thrown into the David Brooks chair on the weekly political roundatable on NPR's All Things Considered Friday. NPR anchor Robert Siegel insisted Rick Perry had a whole set of strange and anti-scientific statements that suggest he's "too far right" to be electable. Notice how NPR just rolls up everything they disagree with and loads it into one question for the "conservative" panelist: