USELESS AND POINTLESS KNOWLEDGE. Let me confess up front that my sole exposure to Christopher Ricks's Bob Dylan scholarship consists of reading occasional references to it in Alex Beam's Boston Globe column. That said, I don't think I would be any less dubious if I were to sit down and read Dylan's Visions of Sin, Ricks's 500-page opus, which is the subject of this Charles McGrath piece in today's New York Times. McGrath writes of Visions:

At various points he compares Mr. Dylan to Marvell, Marlowe, Keats, Tennyson, Hardy, Yeats and Marlon Brando, to cite just a few of his references.... Other chapters ... draw insightful and persuasive parallels between, say, "Lay Lady Lay" and John Donne's poem "To His Mistress Going to Bed," between "Not Dark Yet" and Keats's "Ode to a Nightingale," and between "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" and the Scottish ballad "Lord Randal."

Whoa! The problem with Ricks - who splits his time between Boston University and Oxford - is the same as that of many academicians who are drawn to pop culture. By comparing Dylan to the Great Poets, Ricks both overpraises and diminishes Dylan's gifts. Although Brando makes sense.

Maybe a few of Dylan's songs can hold up on the page; "Desolation Row," a Ricks favorite, certainly comes to mind. But Dylan isn't a poet so much as he is a singer/ songwriter/ musician/ kick-ass rock-and-roller. His genius flows from the combination of his lyrics, his music, and his uniquely urgent, idiosyncratic singing. (Never mind his voice; Dylan is among the greatest singers rock has produced.)

I don't think they'll be publishing "Can't Wait" in any poetry anthologies 50 or 100 years from now. But I hope people will still be listening to Time Out of Mind, the 1997 album whence it came.

IT'S ALL IN THE WRIST. If you or I made a really small sundae, it would be a really small sundae. But if MIT alumnus Kevin Brown makes one, it's something that he "invented," earning him a huge spread on the front of today's Boston Globe Food section. Go figure.

AT LEAST IT'S NOT THE ONION. An alert Wonkette reader passes along one of her finds: a piece on the website Capitol Hill Blue claiming that aides to George W. Bush "privately express growing concern over their leader's state of mind." Writes site publisher Doug Thompson:

Worried White House aides paint a portrait of a man on the edge, increasingly wary of those who disagree with him and paranoid of a public that no longer trusts his policies in Iraq or at home.

"It reminds me of the Nixon days," says a longtime GOP political consultant with contacts in the White House. "Everybody is an enemy; everybody is out to get him. That's the mood over there."

The president also reportedly veers between quoting from the Bible and vulgarly denouncing his enemies.

File this under: interesting if true. And: unlikely. But highly entertaining!

HE REALLY DID CALL HIM A LIZARD. That's for you fans of Boston political trivia. Christopher Hitchens's distaste for Ronald Reagan would be rather more credible if he didn't spend so many of his waking hours licking George W. Bush's boots. Hitchens, in Slate, calls Reagan "a cruel and stupid lizard," as well as "an obvious phony and a loon." Hitchens must feel so relieved to be able to bash a right-winger again. It's been a long, long time. But, Hitch, come on: not just the dead ones, okay?

THE REAL RONALD REAGAN. Two good against-the-grain pieces for your consideration. The first, in Salon, by Barry Goldwater biographer Rick Perlstein, is a useful reminder that Reagan was often unpopular during his long political career, and that he was even the object of a substantial recall effort when he was governor of California.

Though Perlstein gives Reagan credit for being more flexible and pragmatic than George W. Bush, he warns against embracing the gauzy image that has increasingly surrounded him during his long decline. Perlstein writes:

It is a quirk of American culture that each generation of nonconservatives sees the right-wingers of its own generation as the scary ones, then chooses to remember the right-wingers of the last generation as sort of cuddly. In 1964, observers horrified by Barry Goldwater pined for the sensible Robert Taft, the conservative leader of the 1950s. When Reagan was president, liberals spoke fondly of sweet old Goldwater.

Nowadays, as we grapple with the malevolence of President Bush, it's Reagan we remember as the sensible one. At the risk of speaking ill of the dead, let memory at least acknowledge that there was much about Reagan that was not so sensible.

The second, by Joshua Green, appeared in the Washington Monthly in January 2003, but it seems especially pertinent now. Green's take on Reagan is somewhat different from Perlstein's: according to Green (now at the Atlantic Monthly), Reagan really was something of a closet moderate, especially after the bellicose first two years of his presidency. Here's the heart of Green's argument:

Reagan is, to be sure, one of the most conservative presidents in U.S. history and will certainly be remembered as such. His record on the environment, defense, and economic policy is very much in line with its portrayal. But he entered office as an ideologue who promised a conservative revolution, vowing to slash the size of government, radically scale back entitlements, and deploy the powers of the presidency in pursuit of socially and culturally conservative goals. That he essentially failed in this mission hasn't stopped partisan biographers from pretending otherwise. (Noonan writes of his 1980 campaign pledges: "Done, done, done, done, done, done, and done. Every bit of it.")

A sober review of Reagan's presidency doesn't yield the seamlessly conservative record being peddled today. Federal government expanded on his watch. The conservative desire to outlaw abortion was never seriously pursued. Reagan broke with the hardliners in his administration and compromised with the Soviets on arms control. His assault on entitlements never materialized; instead he saved Social Security in 1983. And he repeatedly ignored the fundamental conservative dogma that taxes should never be raised.

Trouble is, Green continues, Reagan's hagiographers on the right have airbrushed out the non-conservative parts of his record in order to turn him into a right-wing icon - and a weapon to use against the rest of us. He writes: "As with other conservative media efforts - Rush Limbaugh, Fox News Channel, The Washington Times - the purpose of the Reagan legacy project is not to deliver accuracy, but enhance political leverage."

MODIFIED LIMITED HANGOUT. The Boston Globe came half-clean yesterday in the matter of that James M. Taylor column seeking to debunk global warming. The paper published a letter from Harvard professor John P. Holdren noting that Taylor's professional affiliation, Environment & Climate News, is "a publication of the ultra-conservative, antiregulation Heartland Institute, where Taylor works."

That's good as far as it goes. But as Media Log revealed last week, the Heartland Institute isn't just a right-wing think tank - it also includes among its directors current and retired officials of such oil- and automobile-industry giants as ExxonMobil, Amoco, and General Motors, companies that directly benefit from any seeds of doubt they are able to sow with regard to global warming.

If the Globe wants to run stuff from right-wing organizations, that's its business. But if it publishes propaganda bought and paid for by industry, it has an obligation to disclose that to its readers. (Actually, it shouldn't run such garbage in the first place. And yes, there are some perfectly respectable scientists it could turn to for an independent anti-global-warming perspective.)

The Globe still owes an apology to its readers.

ANOTHER SIDE OF REAGAN. Check out Greg Palast's Ronald Reagan obituary. The headline: "Killer, Coward, Con-Man; Good Riddance, Gipper ... More Proof Only the Good Die Young." It lacks the mythic sweep of Hunter Thompson's kiss-off to Richard Nixon. But there's nothing in Palast's screed that's even remotely inaccurate.

Good grief. If it were me I would have waited a week, but what the hell.

RONALD REAGAN, 1911-2004. I turned on NPR in my car late yesterday afternoon and heard a long clip of President Reagan giving a speech. I called Mrs. Media Log and said, "Turn on the TV. I think Reagan just died." Sure enough, he had.

Reagan was never my guy. But unlike some liberals, I did not contemplate jumping off the nearest ledge after he was elected in 1980. I was disgusted enough with Jimmy Carter that year that I voted for the independent, John Anderson, which I knew was as good as a vote for Reagan. So I had nothing to complain about.

I thought Reagan was a bad president then, and I still do. But he looks better today than he did during his eight years in office. To the extent that his massive military build-up helped topple communism, it was a good thing. If the tax reform that he and Democratic moderates such as then-senator Bill Bradley shepherded into law had actually held, we'd have a much better system today. Even the enormous budget deficits melted away pretty quickly once Bill Clinton pushed through his desperately needed tax package in 1993. That doesn't mean Reagan's deficits were good; it just means that they turned out not to be as big a deal as they seemed at the time.

His darkest legacy is not Iran-Contra but rather a component of that scandal: his support, both overt and covert, for the right-wing death squads that fought on behalf of the pro-US governments of El Salvador and Guatemala and against the Sandinista government of Nicaragua. It was a terrible thing when the people that the United States was supporting were implicated in the massacre of nuns, peasants, and other innocent people. Reagan was never held fully accountable for those atrocities, and he's certainly not going to be now.

On the other hand, despite his well-known disengagement from day-to-day details - and, at times, from reality itself - Reagan exhibited a certain maturity and judgment that is all too obviously lacking in the White House today. It is unimaginable that Reagan would have more than 100,000 troops bogged down in a war we didn't have to fight.

Reagan wouldn't have ignored the horrors of Saddam Hussein's regime, but he would have used such time-honored techniques as sanctions, United Nations involvement (not that he was any fan of the UN), and clandestine efforts to mount a coup against Saddam. George W. Bush claims to be a Reaganite, but he misses entirely how flexible and nuanced Reagan could be.

BETTER THAN REAL BOXING. It hasn't gotten a lot of attention, but one of the more amusing Boston media stories of recent days is the brawl between Globe boxing (and football) writer Ron Borges and New York Times freelancer Mike Katz. Bruce Allen covers it here, here, and here. At one point Allen seems to side with Borges, posting an anonymous e-mail he received:

Mike Katz may be 5-5 and old but he is also about 250 pounds and just about the biggest prick walking the face of the earth. A truly horrible guy who treats the rest of the media like crap and regularly shoves around ushers, other writers, etc. In talking to a few buddies who witnessed the "fight" it was a few seconds long, Katz started it and Borges had no choice but to defend himself.

However, Allen also links to this David Weber story in yesterday's Herald (check out the "Tale of the Tape" graphic) in which it's reported that the "enraged" Borges, responding to an invitation from Katz, "allegedly lunged across the table and hit Katz across the back of his head with an open-hand slap, knocking his eyeglasses and beret to the floor." Weber also writes:

Acquaintances of both writers described Katz as a "short, fat" man in his 60s who walks with a cane and wears a neck brace because of chronic back problems. Borges, who played football at the University of Massachusetts many years ago, is described as being in his 50s and in much better shape.

Nice! Too bad there's no video.

CASUAL TEEN SEX: THE ABRIDGED VERSION. I've been too busy this week reading about Judith Miller's sex life and Alexandra Polier's non-sex life to have set aside enough time to wade through the New York Times Magazine's big cover story last week on teenagers' sex lives. But since I've already had to fumble through several conversations about this, I set aside some time this morning, and read all 7400 words of it.

Written by freelancer Benoit Denizet-Lewis, the article - which brings new meaning to terms like "friends with benefits" and "hooking up" - is a ripping good read. After all, it's about sex. But if you haven't read it yet, you probably never will. So in the best tradition of Slate's "series-savers," I will bring you up to speed:

1. Teenagers are still having casual sex.

2. The Internet makes it easier.

3. Most adults think this is bad. A few think this is good.

As magazine feature-writing, Denizet-Lewis's story is first rate. As sociology, it's highly suspect. Other than the technological advances that ease the logistics of casual teen sex, there is nothing in here that is persuasive on the matter of things being much different from what they were 20, 30, or 40 years ago. In fact, Denizet-Lewis is too honest to claim otherwise, although there is much huffing and puffing designed to make you think things have changed dramatically.

If you were getting it then, you'd probably be getting it today, too. And if - like, I suspect, most of us - you weren't getting any then, things probably wouldn't be much different in 2004.

DRUDGE AND CLARK REVISITED. For anyone who still cares, Alexandra Polier's account of her non-sex non-affair with John Kerry in the current New York magazine contains pretty convincing evidence that Wesley Clark really did play a key role in passing the rumor along to the media, or at least in further inflaming their loins.

You may recall that Drudge fingered Clark at the time, writing that the then-Democratic presidential candidate had told reporters that Kerry was about to "implode" over an intern scandal. Clark supporters and some other Democrats were upset that pundits - including Media Log - were accepting Drudge's word rather than investigating the Republican dirty-tricks machine.

Well, check this out from Polier's piece:

Drudge claimed Clark himself had told reporters on his campaign bus that Kerry was going to "implode" over a scandal, but when I called Wesley Clark Jr., a screenwriter in L.A., who had helped out on his father's campaign, he told me Drudge had ignored the context of his father's quote. "He was reacting to the latest issue of The National Enquirer, which had just run a front-page story about Kerry and possible scandals, when he said that."

But? What do you mean "but"? This is confirmation, not contradiction. It also comports perfectly with what Boston Globe columnist Tom Oliphant told me at the time in describing the background of a column he'd written on Clark's role in spreading the rumor:

In addition to summarizing the background to Clark's behavior, I also wrote that his comments directed attention [to] (some said specifically mentioned) the piece in The National Enquirer before it was published. The piece was transparently a clip job, but the effect was to increase the level of chatter by a lot. Drudge took it down to the next level, which I described as a frenzy about a story that hadn't been written concerning an allegation that hadn't been made.

Chris Lehane, who'd earlier worked for Kerry and who ended up on Clark's campaign, also figures prominently - and negatively - in Polier's piece.

DEBASING THE BASE. In an interesting juxtaposition showing that both George W. Bush and John Kerry are trying to appeal to the middle, the New York Times today reports that some conservative activists - mostly smaller-government types - are disgusted with Bush, while the Boston Globe details liberal discontent with Kerry.

Make of it what you will. Bush sure as hell is no centrist, but he's certainly not a conservative in any commonly accepted sense of the word, either. Radical right-winger is more like it. Kerry is sort of a moderate liberal. I guess.

WHO'LL STOP THE RAINES? You'll not find a more vacuous piece of political analysis all week than former New York Times executive editor Howell Raines's debut for the Guardian on the shortcomings of John Kerry. You may have learned about it, as I did, from today's Boston Herald. Well, here it is in all its unexpurgated glory.

Sorry to quote the same stuff as the Herald wire report, but this riff on Kerry just screams out:

I personally find him easier to talk to than Al Gore, but there's no denying that he's ponderous. And he's pompous in a way that Gore is not. With Gore, you feel that if he could choose, he would have been born poor and cool. Kerry radiates the feeling that he is entitled to his sense of entitlement. Probably that comes from spending too much time with Teddy Kennedy, but it's a problem. The TV camera is an x-ray for picking up attitudinal truths, and Kerry's lantern jaw and Addams Family face somehow reinforce the message that this guy has passed from ponderous to pompous and is so accustomed to privilege that he doesn't have to worry about looking goofy. It's as if Lurch had gone to Choate.

Good grief. I'm not sure which is worse - that a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist is eager to allow such non-thoughts to be published under his byline, or that he was actually in charge of the World's Greatest Newspaper for a year-and-a-half. It is becoming easier to understand why his reign was such a fiasco, isn't it?

By the way, the headline over Raines's ditty is "Must Do Better." No kidding.

PRESS BOXED. Both the Globe and the Herald report today that media workspace at the Democratic National Convention is getting squeezed. Some reporters may not even be able to work inside the security zone, meaning they're going to get the Richard Reid treatment every time they want to wander inside the FleetCenter.

Just thought I'd point out that if the show had been moved to the South Boston convention center, as it should have been, the entire media horde could have been housed in big, comfortable, cheap tents in the parking lot, which was done with great effectiveness at the Republican gathering in Philadelphia four years ago.

NEW IN THIS WEEK'S PHOENIX. The New York Times confesses its sins in hyping Iraq's non-existent weapons capabilities and terrorist ties. So what took so long?

WHY ALCOHOL AND NEOCONSERVATISM DON'T MIX. So who was the drunken neocon who blurted to Ahmad Chalabi that the United States had broken Iran's secret code? According to today's New York Times story on how Chalabi allegedly came to learn about this intelligence coup:

American officials reported that in the cable to Tehran, the Iranian official recounted how Mr. Chalabi had said that one of "them" - a reference to an American - had revealed the code-breaking operation, the officials said. The Iranian reported that Mr. Chalabi said the American was drunk.

Chalabi has been accused of then turning over the secret to Iranian officials, as grotesque a breach of security as can be imagined.

Here is what the Washington Post says:

The FBI is investigating an intercepted Iranian message that alleges Iraqi exile leader Ahmed Chalabi told Tehran officials that the United States had broken Iran's secret code, U.S. officials said.

The message alleges Chalabi said he had been told about the code-breaking by a drunken U.S. official, one senior Bush administration official said.

Josh Marshall all but names a suspect, but I would need my own secret decoder ring to figure out whom he's referring to:

I'll try not to be too coy. There are a number of folks who could fit that bill. But for anyone who's followed this story, there's one guy who's just got to jump right to the top of the list: an expert on Iran who is extremely close to Chalabi, served as his civilian Pentagon handler for some time in Iraq after the war, and is known for comparing Chalabi to Mohammed and other equally august worthies.

In April, Marshall had this to say about Chalabi's declining fortunes:

There are still more than a few of the Chalabi crowd here in DC who persist in calling this charlatan the "Leader of Free Iraq", as they did for last several years or 'the greatest Arab since Mohammed' as one of his acolytish handlers often refers to him. (Believe me, I'm not making this stuff up.)

Last August, Marshall wrote, "There's another neocon at DOD who, I'm told, has often called Chalabi the most important Muslim since the Prophet Mohammed." But no name there, either.

Media Log seeks enlightenment. If Marshall has ever named his suspect, drop me a line at dkennedy@phx.com.

AND NOW, THE REST OF THE STORY. The Boston Globe recently announced that it will begin accepting ads on the op-ed page. A column today that attempts to debunk concerns about global warming, by one James M. Taylor, would appear to fall into that category. Unfortunately, the Globe presents it not as a paid ad but, rather, as an earnest opinion piece by someone who is identified only by the respectable-sounding title of "managing editor of Environment & Climate News."

More about that in a moment. First, though, a few words about Taylor's wacky column, written ostensibly to make fun of the movie The Day After Tomorrow, a global-warming nightmare thriller. At first I figured Taylor would simply point out that the various global-warming scenarios are more complicated and less spectacular than Hollywood would have it. Within a few paragraphs, though, Taylor was espousing the most extreme views held by industry and its right-wing supporters. To wit: that if there is any global warming taking place at all, it is slight, and in any case will take place at night, while you're sleeping; and that the concomitant rise in carbon-dioxide levels is good for you. Taylor writes:

Most recent and unbiased scientific research indicates that temperature change caused by rising concentrations of greenhouse gases will be moderate, perhaps 1 degree Celsius in the next century; most of the warming will occur at night and during the winter; and higher concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide (which plant life needs to thrive and survive) will lead to a greening of the planet that will enhance global food production.

Now, in fact, the case for human-caused global warming is a bit more complicated than environmentalists would have you believe, which I discovered when I dipped my toe into this turbulent water nearly three years ago. But the overwhelming consensus of scientific opinion is definitely not on Taylor's side. The simple-minded virulence of Taylor's screed should have set off alarm bells when it arrived at the Globe. It certainly set off Media Log's alarms. And it took me no more than a few minutes on Google to learn that Taylor's piece never should have seen the light of day - except in one of those new op-ads.

Environment & Climate News, as it turns out, is a publication of the Chicago-based Heartland Institute, a right-wing organization founded in 1984 that is "devoted to turning ideas into social movements that empower people." How nice. Scroll down its home page, and you will see that it promotes relatively benign, conservative-oriented causes such as school choice - and some truly out-there ideas, such as the notion that genetically modified crops are necessary to preserve water resources, that new air-pollution standards "will do significant economic harm but little environmental good," that the government should do nothing about the obesity epidemic, and that second-hand cigarette smoke is harmless.

It gets better. According to Disinfopedia.com, the Heartland Institute's directors include current and retired officials of ExxonMobil, Amaco, General Motors, and Philip Morris. Its funding comes from ExxonMobil and a number of right-wing foundations, including the notorious John M. Olin Foundation and the Scaife Foundations. (As in Richard Melon Scaife, who reportedly once told a journalist attempting to ask him a question, "You fucking communist cunt, get out of here.") In addition, Heartland co-founder David Padden is a right-wing activist long involved in such organizations as the Cato Institute and the Center for Libertarian Studies.

According to Bill Berkowitz, writing for WorkingForChange.com, "The Heartland Institute ... is one of the foremost right-wing purveyors of the carbon dioxide is good for you theory."

Op-ed pages are where newspapers publish opinion pieces, and by their very nature the authors of those pieces are not expected to be as disinterested as, say, reporters who cover political campaigns, homicides, or the stock market. On the other hand, neither are op-ed editors supposed to publish discredited propaganda that's been bought and paid for by corporate and right-wing interests, especially when those interests are not disclosed.

The Globe has been apologizing a lot lately, even when it shouldn't have. Well, Taylor's ridiculous piece is something that's definitely worth an apology.

Meanwhile, the Globe's advertising salespeople must be wondering how they'll ever manage to sell an op-ad when the editorial side is giving them away.

IF YOU BROADCAST, THEY WILL LISTEN. Chaos and a lack of money aside, Air America Radio is coming along, reports Jacques Steinberg in today's New York Times. Steinberg writes:

Despite the intrigue concerning its management - and the abrupt pulling of its programming last month from stations in Chicago and Los Angeles, in a contract dispute - there are early indications that, where it can be heard, Air America is actually drawing listeners. WLIB-AM in New York City, one of 13 stations that carry at least part of Air America's 16 hours of original programming each day, even appears to be holding its own with WABC-AM, the New York City station and talk radio powerhouse that is Mr. Limbaugh's flagship.

For example, among listeners from 25 and 54, whom advertisers covet, the network estimates it drew an average listener share (roughly a percentage of listeners) of 3.4 on WLIB in April, from 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. on weekdays, according to the company's extrapolation of figures provided by Arbitron for the three months ended in April. (Arbitron, which does not provide ratings in monthly increments, said the network's methodology appeared sound, although such figures were too raw to translate to numbers of listeners.)

By contrast, according to Air America's figures, WABC-AM drew an average share of 3.2 during the same period in April for the same age group. That time period includes the three hours in which Mr. Limbaugh was pitted head to head against Mr. Franken.

That's a good base to build on, but it would certainly help if Air America weren't so strapped for cash that Franken is currently working for free.

Last week, I did some extended checking-in for the first time since Air America's launch, listening in on the network's website. Morning Sedition is still pretty bad. The hour that I was listening was "highlighted" by an interview with an Iraq-war veteran who talked about mistakenly blowing away civilians at a checkpoint. It could have been powerful, but in the inexpert hands of the show's hosts it came off as callow. Unfiltered was so-so; Chuck D was interviewing some guy who is the youngest member of the legislature in New York's Nassau County. Zzzzz.

The O'Franken Factor, on the other hand, seemed greatly improved. Al Franken's understated humor was coming through much more clearly than I remember from before. His guest was conservative-pit-bull-turned-liberal-pit-bull David Brock, who apparently comes on regularly to talk about his new website, MediaMatters.org.

Brock is currently campaigning to get Armed Forces Radio to drop Rush Limbaugh from its taxpayer-funded service, arguing that Limbaugh's tee-hee take on the horrors of Abu Ghraib is not only a direct contradiction of White House policy, but that it represents a danger to the troops as well.

Pretty good stuff. I just wish it wasn't such a pain in the ass to capture the stream so that I can listen to it in my car.

A NEW TYPE OF OUTSOURCING. Scott Allen reports in today's Boston Globe:

Harvard Medical School plans to break ground today on a branch in the Persian Gulf that will help oversee a massive "healthcare city" in the United Arab Emirates, the latest in a wave of US-Arab medical projects that was accelerated by the post-Sept. 11 restrictions on travel to the United States by the Middle East's elite.

This can't be good for the local economy.

BUSH'S LIES EXPOSED. The Washington Post nails it in an editorial yesterday:

President Bush's persistence in describing the abuse of foreign prisoners as an isolated problem at one Iraqi prison is blatantly at odds with the facts seeping out from his administration. These include mounting reports of crimes at detention facilities across Iraq and Afghanistan and evidence that detention policies the president approved helped set the stage for torture and homicide. Yes, homicide: The most glaring omission from the president's account is that at least 37 people have died in U.S. custody in Iraq and Afghanistan - and that at least 10 of these cases are suspected criminal killings of detainees by U.S. interrogators or soldiers.

Let's return for a moment to Bush's speech of last Monday night:

Under the dictator, prisons like Abu Ghraib were symbols of death and torture. That same prison became a symbol of disgraceful conduct by a few American troops who dishonored our country and disregarded our values.

Try as Bush might, he can't blame it all on Charles Graney and Lynndie England. We know too much already. We're going to know a lot more in the very near future.

CORRECTION OF THE WEEK. If not the month. From today's Boston Globe (not online yet):

Because of a reporting error, Dr. Arleigh Dygert Richardson III, former teacher at Lawrence Academy in Groton, was described in his obituary yesterday as favoring tacky pants with tweed jackets and Oxford shirts. Dr. Richardson favored khaki pants.

THE DIFFERENCE IS THAT THE CITIBANK DIRECTORS DON'T CONDONE RAPE. John Farrell has an excellent rant on Cardinal Bernard Law's soft Roman landing, although, as you will see, he takes a completely unfair shot at the board of Citibank.

KERRY SPEAKS. Tim Grieve has a longish, highly worthwhile Q&A with John Kerry in Salon today. Read the whole thing, but I especially liked how Kerry responded to Republican charges that he's a "flip-flopper":

Q: As you know, the Republican line on you is that you're a "flip-flopper." Do you think the White House really views you that way, or is this just an intellectually dishonest political exercise?

A: Of course it is. It's not only intellectually dishonest, it's shallow beyond belief. It's exactly what they said about Bill Clinton, it's exactly what they said about Al Gore, it's exactly what they said about John McCain. It is the standard operating approach of Republicans who have nothing to say for themselves, so all they do is try to brand somebody else.

Q: Well, it's not exactly what they did to McCain. Nobody's accused you of having an illegitimate love child.

A: Not yet. I'm waiting for those. That's probably August or September.

I'll tell you what. What's really so craven about it is that they pick something that they implement badly and screw up, like Iraq or No Child Left Behind or the Patriot Act. And when you point out that they screwed it up, they say that you're "flip-flopping."

But they, on the other hand, break a promise to have no deficit, break a promise not to invade Social Security, break a promise to fund No Child Left Behind, break a promise to introduce the four-pollutant bill and move forward on the environment, break a promise to deal with the real health issues and prescription drugs, break a promise of humility in American foreign policy. I mean, you start running down the list - I've never seen a grander array of flip-flops. This is the biggest "say one thing, do another" administration in modern history.

Q: So maybe when you voted to authorize the use of force in Iraq, you were agreeing to never raise any questions about how the president used the power he was given.

A: I didn't sign off on that. This is the biggest "my way or the highway" crowd we've ever had in Washington. They have no interest in legitimate governance. They have all the interest in power, favor, privilege, perks and reelection.

Caveat: it is true that Kerry has a maddening habit of nuancing things so finely that he can claim to hold numerous positions on many issues. But that's not the same thing as being a flip-flopper, and the Republicans know it. And it's amazing the way that Kerry's enemies will mischaracterize reality in order to shoe-horn it into that paradigm.

Yesterday Bob Somerby rightly whacked the Boston Herald for referring to Kerry's dalliance with not formally accepting the Democratic nomination in Boston - an idea driven wholly by a weird technicality in campaign-finance regulations, and which Kerry ultimately rejected - as a "flip-flop."

Today the Herald is back with a really stupid editorial (although not as stupid as another editorial, headlined - I'm not making this up - "How Dare Al Gore Disgrace This Nation") that concludes: "Ah, yes, another decisive moment from a man who is increasingly behaving like New England weather. You know, if you don't like it, just wait a minute, it'll change." In the print edition, the editorial is illustrated with a photo of Kerry as some sort of a two-faced monster.

HERALD BRAIN DRAIN CONTINUES. Veteran staff reporter Robin Washington is leaving to become editorial-page editor of the Duluth News Tribune. And recently promoted investigative editor Maggie Mulvihill has been named to a Nieman Fellowship.

WELL, I WOULDN'T HAVE APOLOGIZED. Boston Globe editor Marty Baron tells the Washington Post that it's "regrettable" his paper ran a photo of Boston College students yawning during Tim Russert's commencement speech.

This Russert thing is getting completely out of hand.

VENNOCHI TAKES THE WALTER BROOKS CHALLENGE. The Boston Globe columnist says she was never told the Kennedy-compound party was off the record. Her highly anticipated report reveals that ... nothing happened!

NEW IN THIS WEEK'S PHOENIX. The horrors at Abu Ghraib have finally changed how the media report on the war - and on the president who started it.

SHE WHOSE NAME MUST NOT BE SPOKEN. The talk of the media world over the next few days is going to be today's mea culpa in the New York Times about the paper's gullible coverage of Iraq's weapons capabilities and terrorist ties in the run-up to the war. Headlined "From the Editors," the piece admits to mistakes on the part of reporters and editors, and to the same overreliance on the charlatan Iraqi exile leader Ahmad Chalabi that helped goad the White House into this terrible, unnecessary war.

Although the piece, as Editor & Publisher has already observed, makes no mention of Chalabi's favorite Times reporter, Judith Miller, you've got to wonder whether her career can survive. It would be ironic if Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, et al., whose love affair with Chalabi led to the deaths of hundreds of Americans and thousands of Iraqis, get off scot-free while Miller pays a higher price. Then again, despite the Times' well-documented problems of the past several years, it still has higher standards than the Bush White House.

Miller's principal tormenter, Jack Shafer, wrote about the pending "Editor's Note" yesterday in Slate. Although he closes with "And so ends The Judith Miller Chronicles (I hope)," presumably he'll have more to say today.

Romenesko is gathering commentary on the subject here.

WINING, DINING, AND NOT FILING. Walter Brooks has an amusing take on an off-the-record soirée at the Kennedy compound attended by about 100 journalists, and apparently mentioned by only two smallish papers in the western part of the state.

Media Log was not invited. And that's on the record.

A FIASCO FORETOLD. Boston Globe columnists Scot Lehigh and Steve Bailey today both blast the poor planning that may result in apocalyptic gridlock during the Democratic National Convention. Bailey is angry - I mean, really angry - and thus more entertaining.

THE MISEDUCATION OF JEFF JACOBY

The White House's top lawyer warned more than two years ago that U.S. officials could be prosecuted for "war crimes" as a result of new and unorthodox measures used by the Bush administration in the war on terrorism, according to an internal White House memo and interviews with participants in the debate over the issue.

The concern about possible future prosecution for war crimes - and that it might even apply to Bush administration officials themselves - is contained in a crucial portion of an internal January 25, 2002, memo by White House counsel Alberto Gonzales obtained by NEWSWEEK. It urges President George Bush declare the war in Afghanistan, including the detention of Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters, exempt from the provisions of the Geneva Convention.

- Michael Isikoff, Newsweek website, 5/17/04

The Pentagon has begun criminal investigations of at least 37 deaths involving detainees held by U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, officials said Friday. There are 33 cases involved, the officials said, eight more than the military reported two weeks ago....

Of the 15 other cases that happened inside detention facilities, four were categorized as justifiable homicides, two as homicides, and nine were still under active investigation, the official said. Eight of those nine have been classified as homicides involving suspected assaults on detainees before or during questioning.

- Associated Press, 5/21/04

Two weeks ago Senator Ted Kennedy uttered what may turn out to be the single most disgusting remark made about the United States in the course of the Iraq War. The reaction to his slander - or rather, the lack of reaction - speaks volumes about the moral bankruptcy of the American left.

Speaking in the Senate on May 10, Kennedy had this to say about the Abu Ghraib prison scandal:

"On March 19, 2004, President Bush asked, 'Who would prefer that Saddam's torture chambers still be open?' Shamefully, we now learn that Saddam's torture chambers reopened under new management - US management."

This was not a blurted, off-the-cuff comment - Kennedy was reading from a prepared text. It was not a shocked first reaction to the abuses at Abu Ghraib - the story had broken more than a week earlier. Incredibly, the senior senator from Massachusetts really was equating the disgraceful mistreatment of a few Iraqi prisoners by a few American troops with the unspeakable sadism, rape, and mass murder that had been routine under Saddam Hussein.

- Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe website, 5/25/04

BLAMING IT ON THE TROOPS. It took what seemed like forever tonight for George W. Bush to get around to Abu Ghraib. And when he did, it was to blame it all on the troops, and to promise the completely symbolic (though probably necessary) step of demolishing the prison. Said Bush:

A new Iraq will also need a humane, well-supervised prison system. Under the dictator, prisons like Abu Ghraib were symbols of death and torture. That same prison became a symbol of disgraceful conduct by a few American troops who dishonored our country and disregarded our values.

America will fund the construction of a modern maximum security prison.

When that prison is completed, detainees at Abu Ghraib will be relocated. Then with the approval of the Iraqi government, we will demolish the Abu Ghraib Prison as a fitting symbol of Iraq's new beginning.

Those seven camera-and-glowstick-wielding soldiers deserve their share of the blame. But it's already been reported that similar abuses took place in Afghanistan, and Rummy only knows what's going on at Guantánamo. Sorry, Mr. President. You can knock down Abu Ghraib, but the truth is coming out anyway.

IT'S THE SAME SECRET SERVICE, ISN'T IT? So why will Greater Boston be virtually shut down for the Democratic National Convention while life will go on pretty much as normal in New York City when the Republicans gather there five weeks later? Tatsha Robertson reports in Sunday's Boston Globe.

KERRY, SHRIVER, AND THE CHURCH. Scott Stossel, the author of a major new biography of Sargent Shriver, wrote in the Globe's Ideas section on Sunday about how John Kerry might learn from Shriver in balancing his Catholicism with his politics. Shriver, as Stossel tells it, stuck to Church doctrine throughout his public career on such matters as abortion and birth control, but refused to let his personal religious views guide his policymaking.

It's a worthwhile piece, but I learned a lot more about Shriver than I did about how Kerry could follow his example. Even though Shriver was much more closely aligned with the Church hierarchy than Kerry appears to be, Shriver today would face problems very different from those that were on the table in the 1960s and '70s.

Let's not forget that last summer, the Vatican issued a document on same-sex marriage that ordered Catholic politicians to get the with program. The document, written largely by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, includes this:

When legislation in favour of the recognition of homosexual unions is proposed for the first time in a legislative assembly, the Catholic law-maker has a moral duty to express his opposition clearly and publicly and to vote against it. To vote in favour of a law so harmful to the common good is gravely immoral.

Currently, there is a controversy over whether Catholic politicians who are pro-choice should take communion. And make no mistake: Shriver's actions and statements were entirely pro-choice, regardless of his personal views about abortion. Today's Catholic hierarchy would be breathing down his neck just as surely as it is breathing down Kerry's.

UNCONVENTIONAL WISDOM. Boston Herald columnist Joe Sciacca today points to (sub. req.) the biggest problem if Kerry decides not to accept the nomination at the convention: the very likely possibility that national conventions, already relics of a long-dead era, will be done away with altogether. (Of course, it's a problem only for those who want to keep the conventions on life support.) Writes Sciacca of Kerry:

He's taking heat for flip-flopping on the nomination, but there's no shame for Kerry in keeping his eye on the prize instead of the party. Running for president means winning, not ensuring that some donkey-capped delegates with their credentials hanging over their lobster bibs feel "part of the process." Both parties should start thinking about the conventions and whether the negatives - too scripted, too costly, too mind-numbing and too predictable - have made them throwaway events in the new era of high-speed politics.

It's been wrongly predicted before, but I think there's an excellent chance that this will be the last time the two major parties hold conventions as we know them. That moment is past due.

NOT SO SERIOUS AFTER ALL. Attorney General Tom Reilly finds time in his busy schedule to persecute same-sex couples. Obviously I gave him way too much credit.

AIR AMERICA'S ONGOING WOES. Still more bad news about Air America Radio, the liberal broadcasting venture that you can't hear in Boston. Reuters reports that the struggling network is seeking to raise more money and is retreating from its earlier goal of buying radio stations outright. At least the people behind it haven't given up, but they need someone to run this mess who actually knows radio - fast.

Here is a possibility.

I have to confess that I haven't listened since the first week or so. Capturing the Web stream and converting it to a format so that I can take it with me is just too much of a pain. Forget whether the programming is any good - Air America needs money, and it needs stations. How can anyone take this seriously if it can't be heard in liberal Boston and Cambridge in time for the Democratic National Convention?

CAMPAIGN FAIRNESS. Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry will accept the nomination in Boston whether it costs him millions or not. The reason is very simple: he can't afford to let the convoluted alternative that his campaign has come up with to become the story.

But let's stop snickering for a moment at the notion of a candidate so indecisive that he can't even make up his mind whether to accept the nomination at a nominating convention. The fact is that his campaign has identified a real problem, and there ought to be a reasonable solution.

The Federal Election Commission should find a way to let Kerry keep spending the campaign funds he's raised as long as George W. Bush can. It's absurd to think that federal spending limits should kick in five weeks earlier for Kerry just because the Democrats are having their convention at a normal time of year, while the Republicans delayed theirs as long as possible.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SERIOUS AND NOT. That would be the difference between Attorney General Tom Reilly and Governor Mitt Romney.

Item one: Romney sends the marriage-license applications of 10 out-of-state same-sex couples to Reilly's office and demands that Reilly take action to prevent them from getting married. Romney: "We all have the same interests. To make sure the law is carried out." Reilly: "We have an awful lot of other things going on, so we'll deal with this as it comes." (Globe coverage here; Herald coverage here.)

Item two: Six ex-employees of the Registry of Motor Vehicles are being investigated for their alleged role in a scheme to sell illegal driver's licenses. The Globe reports: "Reilly called the allegations 'deeply disturbing' because of the potential dangers posed by those in the country illegally with false documents and by dangerous drivers being returned to the road." (Globe coverage here; Herald coverage here.)

In other words, when Reilly says he has better things to do than persecute gay and lesbian couples, he's not kidding.

IT DEPENDS ON HOW YOU COUNT

From today's Globe:

New University of Massachusetts president Jack M. Wilson will earn $350,000 a year plus an array of benefits including hefty car and housing allowances, under an agreement reached with trustees this week, a UMass spokesman said.

The salary is higher than that of his predecessor, William M. Bulger, who earned $309,000 plus benefits, but falls well short of the $400,000 limit that trustees set on Wilson's pay before starting negotiations this month.

From today's Herald:

New UMass President Jack Wilson inked a five-year contract this week that could pay him nearly a cool half-million dollars his first year - $140,000 more than his predecessor.

The contract was signed late Tuesday, a UMass spokesman said, giving Wilson, a former physicist, a handsome pay package of as much as $497,000 for his first year on the job - his first as university president anywhere.

As you will see, the facts in both stories are the same - it's just that the Herald totaled up Wilson's benefits. Since money is money, I'd say the Herald provides a truer picture.

TUNE IN SATURDAY AT 3 P.M. I'll be appearing tomorrow on WBIX Radio in Boston (AM 1060) between 3 and 4 p.m. on Family Talk Radio, with Deirdre Wilson and Peter Chianca, to talk about my book on dwarfism, Little People: Learning to See the World Through My Daughter's Eyes.

If you're out of the signal range, listen live here.

WE POST, YOU DECIDE. Lowell Sun assistant editorial-page editor Ann Frantz writes:

Hey, Dan!

Any writer knows it's a snap to extract a sentence and use it out of context for effect - as you did with my column, which does not apologize for that photo, but supports it.

I try to recognize the motivations that prompt people on different sides of an issue and address them, maybe even change a mind or two. I don't screech like a banshee at them....

GOOD journalists don't alter content to give themselves something for their own juicy column, just media hacks.

Wishy-washy? Here's something that you, with your simple black-and-white head, can understand: Up yours.

And thanks for reading! Didn't know you actually did much of that.

Ann Frantz

Hey, Ann! As you know, I posted a link to your entire column so that Media Log readers could decide for themselves what you were up to. I also did not say, suggest, or even hint that you "apologize[d]" for the photo. [See clarification below.] Uh, GOOD journalists don't put words in other people's mouths.

NO GUTS, NO GLORY. The Lowell Sun, spooked by a handful of cancellations, apologizes today for publishing a photo of two men kissing at Cambridge City Hall this past Monday, the day that same-sex marriage became legal in Massachusetts. A Sun editorial panders thusly:

While the photo accurately chronicled the new reality in Massachusetts that same-sex couples are to receive equal rights granted traditional married couples it represented a shocking element to what has otherwise been a fair and cautious process conducted on The Sun's news and editorial pages.

To some readers, the photograph pushed the envelope too far. Those contacted by The Sun said it represented an unnecessary, in-your-face intrusion, especially for parents with young children.

No doubt The Sun underestimated the photo's impact on a segment of its readership population. By publishing it, we inadvertently inflamed passions and emotions in people who are still trying to come to terms with the gay-marriage issue.

We learned a valuable lesson and hope to benefit from it....

If The Sun could turn back the clock, we most likely would select a less intrusive photograph not because the original photo was wrong but because it didn't fit the go-slow approach we've endorsed for a better understanding of this sensitive issue.

Assistant editorial-page editor Ann Connery Frantz compounds the outrage with a remarkably wishy-washy exercise in hand-wringing that includes this absurdity: "Parents want to protect their kids from behavior that offends. Although I suspect many children are more understanding than they're given credit for, I have also felt the impulse to keep them innocent, at least while they still were."

So if you're gay or lesbian and living in Greater Lowell, here's the message: you can get married. But don't act so, you know, married.

Clarification: The Sun's editorial apologized for running the photo, not Frantz's column. Media Log apologies for any misunderstanding.

THE SEVENTH-GRADER THEORY OF POLITICAL GAMESMANSHIP. The New York Times' Elisabeth Bumiller writes today:

Both White House and Bush campaign officials said there were no plans or debate about changing the president's re-election strategy, which is to run on national security. Mr. Rove and Mr. Bush were also described as adamant that the president not admit publicly to any mistakes in war planning and the American-led occupation of the country, as Paul D. Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary and intellectual godfather of the Iraq war, did in a hearing on Capitol Hill on Tuesday.

"There is a theory in the White House that they don't want to appear like Jimmy Carter," said one Republican adviser. "They think that's weak."

So how many Americans and Iraqis must die so that no one will confuse George W. Bush with Jimmy Carter?

Don't worry, Mr. President. No one is going to confuse you with a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, that's for sure.

NEW IN THIS WEEK'S PHOENIX. The big story: With Iraq taking center stage, other news gets squeezed. Plus, Danny Schechter goes public, Spare Change News goes pro, and the Globe goes porn.

FAKE RAPES AND LYING LIARS. You will not be surprised to learn that the right is lying about the Boston Globe's role in promulgating those fake photos of American troops raping Iraqi women. The pictures were unveiled at a news conference last week by Boston City Councilor Chuck Turner and black-community activist Sadiki Kambon. Click here and work backwards for the full story.

To recap briefly: the Globe published an article about the news conference by reporter Donovan Slack that conveyed great skepticism about the pictures, and that quoted a military spokesman as saying the photos might well be an Internet fraud. In fact, it turned out that WorldNetDaily.com had already exposed them as frauds. Where the Globe went wrong was in running a George Rizer photo of Turner and Kambon in which the fake-rape pictures were clearly visible; and then, when editors realized what a mistake they'd made after the first edition rolled off the presses, shrinking the photo rather than removing it altogether from subsequent editions.

A screw-up? Yes. A really bad screw-up? Absolutely! But not the one that right-wingers wish the Globe had made. That's not going to stop them, though.

Here, for instance, is Mark Steyn, taking a break from the hard work of ridiculing triple amputee Max Cleland:

In the last few days, the Mirror, a raucous Fleet Street tabloid, has published pictures of British troops urinating on Iraqi prisoners, and the Boston Globe, a somnolent New England broadsheet, has published pictures of American troops sexually abusing Iraqi women. In both cases, the pictures turned out to be fake. From a cursory glance at the details in the London snaps and the provenance of the Boston ones, it should have been obvious to editors at both papers that they were almost certainly false.

Yet they published them. Because they wanted them to be true. Because it would bring them a little closer to the head they really want to roll - George W. Bush's.

Writing in National Review, John O'Sullivan accuses the Globe of "Willing Gullibility," adding:

Two newspapers - the Daily Mirror in Britain and the Boston Globe in the U.S. - have published fake photographs of British and American soldiers abusing prisoners. In the British case the fakes were quickly detected once they had been published, and in the American case, they had been detected before the Globe published them. Neither the media's vaunted "skepticism" nor simple fact-checking on the internet were employed in either case by the papers. The fakes were, in the old Fleet Street joke, "too good to check." There was a rush to misjudgment.

On a right-wing website called OpinionEditorials.com, someone named Lee P Butler (no period, please!) blurts out:

The mainstream media has joined the attack of our military as The Boston Globe, a subsidiary of The New York Times, published photos that show what they said were American soldiers taking part in 'gang rapes' of Iraqi women without ever verifying their authenticity. They have since been proven to be pictures taken from an internet porn site. The newspaper has since given what they consider an apology but still refuses to accept their own complicity.

I'm sure I could find more examples if I kept looking.

Of course, none of these accounts is even remotely accurate, but they follow one of the right's favorite scripts: that the liberal media - in this case, the Globe - so hate America that they eagerly seize upon dubious claims of heinous behavior on the part of US soldiers. It doesn't matter that the Globe reported no such thing. It doesn't matter that the paper didn't "publish" the fake pictures, instead accidentally capturing them in a photo of Turner and Kambon. (And before you dismiss my contention that it was an accident, ask yourself if you really believe that any mainstream-newspaper editor would knowingly run graphic photos of oral sex and gang rape. Pause. Okay, you've got your answer, don't you?)

The right has its lies and myths to promote. And it will never, ever let the truth stand in the way.

TECHNOLOGY'S TOLL. The Boston Herald's Elisabeth Beardsley today has a must-read on rude and obnoxious toll-takers. But that's not what this item is about.

The Herald's website has a feature that highlights certain keywords and lets you click for more information. Toward the end of Beardsley's piece is a reference to an "Indian Orchard man." (Indian Orchard is a small town in Western Massachusetts.) India is highlighted. Select it, and you get a bunch of stories related to India, the nation.

Although nothing on last week's election and subsequent political machinations.

Calling IT!

TATTOO WHO? Continuing this morning's theme of petty gotchas, here is the lead of a story in the Boston Globe by Christina Pazzanese: "After Massachusetts legalized tattoos in early 2001, Nashua firefighter Roger Hall began exploring what kind he might get."

What does this mean? Nashua, as we know, is in New Hampshire, where tattooing has been legal pretty much forever. And even if Hall was a Massachusetts firefighter, couldn't he have driven to New Hampshire? Was there a reason that he had to wait for tattooing to become legal in Massachusetts? Or is it simply that no one edited this?

THESE OPINIONS BROUGHT TO YOU BY ... The Boston Globe announces today that it will begin accepting ads on the op-ed page. This is unsurprising: the New York Times has been taking such ads for years. No doubt officials at the New York Times Company, which owns both papers, have been grumbling that if it's good enough for the Times, it's certainly good enough for the Globe. And let's face it - the Globe op-ed page does not often seem overwhelmed with stellar material.

Still, having an ad-free op-ed page was always a distinguishing feature of the Globe, and it's too bad to see it go away. I imagine that it will result in fewer pieces by outside contributors - many of which, let's face it, are snoozers, but which nevertheless diversify the page.

HOW IS THIS EVEN POSSIBLE? "CORRECTION - An editorial yesterday misstated the name of Julie Goodridge, one of the gay marriage plaintiffs."

Coming tomorrow: the Globe screws up the president's middle initial.

A RACK IN BLACK. Here is the Boston Herald's Andrew Miga this morning on Alexandra Kerry's black dress, which was the talk of Drudge, Wonkette, and Kaus yesterday. Kerry wore a slinky number to the Cannes Film Festival, which - in photos beamed across the Web - turned out to be entirely see-through. (Media Log's verdict: not bad!)

Kaus, at least, is honest enough to admit that the effect was almost certainly the result of the cameras' flash, although that doesn't stop him from wondering if the pictures prove that she is "a bit vain, selfish and opportunistic." Really.

But there is simply no way Kerry could have looked in the mirror, seen what the photos depicted yesterday, and said to herself, "Perfect! That is exactly how I want to look tonight!" I mean, let's be serious.

Well, okay, not too serious.

MARRIED, OFTEN WITH CHILDREN. The biggest story in the country today is gay marriage, and Massachusetts is the epicenter, as same-sex marriage becomes legal here for the first time anywhere in the United States. (Globe coverage here; Herald coverage here.)

Not to focus on the negative, but I feel compelled to reproduce the first few paragraphs of Howie Carr's column in Sunday's Herald. Unlike his fellow columnist Joe Fitzgerald, who at least appears to be a true believer (sub. req.), I find it hard to accept that the sneering Carr really cares one way or the other. Yet this is how he began his hateful little screed (sub. req.) yesterday:

Gay marriage, another mega-embarrassment for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, but what else is new? Imagine the circus this evening out on Mass. Ave. in front of Cambridge City Hall - one shudders to think of what sort of XXX-rated products the hawkers will be trying to peddle to those who once were referred to in simpler times as "brides" and "grooms."

"Hey, get your amyl nitrites here. Poppers here, poppers!"

This is the liberal credo: If it happens in Abu Ghraib prison, it's a war crime. If it happens at a rest stop on I-495, it's true love.

Welcome to Massachusetts. The Gay State. Sodom and Begorrah.

And everyone has to pretend that this will be the end of it. You will be hounded by the PC Police if you state the obvious, that if the perversion du jour is "gay marriage," then tomorrow it will be polygamy, and the day after tomorrow incest, and then the final frontier ... bestiality.

Elisabeth Beardsley, Thomas Caywood, Thea Singer, Marie Szaniszlo, Franci Richardson, and other Herald reporters trying to cover gay marriage with the seriousness it deserves must cringe when they see garbage like this.

The Globe's anti-gay-marriage columnist, Jeff Jacoby, complained yesterday that "the media depiction of the same-sex marriage controversy has been strikingly one-sided." No doubt I'm caught in my own paradigm, but I can't help but think that that's because there is a right and a wrong regarding gay marriage, and that the vast majority of the media have sided with those who are right.

Jacoby continued:

Those of us who think this week's revolution is a terrible mistake need to do a much better job of explaining that the core question is not "Why shouldn't any couple in love be able to marry?" but something more essential: "What is marriage for?" We need to convey that the fundamental purpose of marriage is to unite men and women so that any children they may create or adopt will have a mom and a dad.

Marriage expresses a public judgment that every child deserves a mom and a dad. Same-sex marriage, by contrast, says that the sexual and emotional desires of adults count for more than the needs of children. Which message do we want the next generation to receive?

Well, marriage is for many things, but I agree with Jacoby that child-rearing is by far the most important. I would even agree that there are many advantages to raising children within the context of a family headed by a mother and a father - advantages that are difficult to replicate with two mothers, or two fathers, or a single parent.

But this is theory. The reality is that there are already same-sex couples and single parents raising children, and that, in many cases, they are doing a far better job than some traditional families. Children are raised by actual people, not by theories about what constitutes the ideal. We ought to recognize that. And today, at least in one state, we do.

RUMSFELD'S LAST WEEK? Here is the latest from Seymour Hersh, in the current New Yorker, on a secret order signed by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld that may have led directly to the abuses at Abu Ghraib. The most chilling paragraph:

The government consultant [a source of Hersh's] said that there may have been a serious goal, in the beginning, behind the sexual humiliation and the posed photographs. It was thought that some prisoners would do anything - including spying on their associates - to avoid dissemination of the shameful photos to family and friends. The government consultant said, "I was told that the purpose of the photographs was to create an army of informants, people you could insert back in the population." The idea was that they would be motivated by fear of exposure, and gather information about pending insurgency action, the consultant said. If so, it wasn't effective; the insurgency continued to grow.

When you consider the incredible damage that has been done to American interests by the abuses and torture at Abu Ghraib - when you consider that terrorists executed Nicholas Berg in retaliation (or at least used it as a convenient excuse) - then, if this is true, Rumsfeld's resignation should be on President Bush's desk by noon today.

Yeah, right.