I know I'm really just adding to people's winter blues when I gnash my teeth over this stuff, but I thought I'd show why I link to the Daily Howler. And no, it's not pure misanthropy - I'm not so far gone yet. Here's the critical passage:

"But as the Post only notes in passing, the incidents used to flog Bush and Gore didn’t even actually occur. As has long since become clear, Bush’s “supposed” fascination with a supermarket scanner was an invention of a New York Times pool reporter. Meanwhile, Gore’s trio of damaging “boasts” were only “alleged,” the Post slickly notes. And at the end of this passage, the Post says it again. Some of the conduct the press corps attacked was only “imagined,” the Post says.

What an amazing acknowledgment! In this editorial, the Post’s editors indirectly describe shocking misconduct on the part of their cohort. They acknowledge that the press trashed Bush and Gore on the basis of claims that were only “imagined!” But how amazing is today’s press elite? The editors only mention this fact in passing, and offer no thought about this state of affairs. Did the press corps “imagine” three “alleged” boasts by Gore, then flog them to amplify “already-present worries about the candidate’s temperament?” Yes, it did, the editors say. And the editors don’t much seem to care.

What are the editors really saying? They are really describing the conduct which we have described as following “scripts.” It’s bad enough that the Washington press made a big deal of a misspelled word. It’s stupid enough that the national press flogged a “whoop” from a single speech. But as the Post editorial plainly acknowledges, the press corps’ misconduct goes well beyond that. Especially during Campaign 2000, the press corps simply invented stories, then used these tales to drive preconceived notions. At the Post, this astounding conduct seems so run-of-the-mill that it only gets mentioned in passing."

(In context at The Howler.)

What this country needs is a good enlightened despot! Like, say... me!