but takes away from her message when she cites Reno for being a lesbian. I don't really see what that has to do with the picture. Of course Reno and (Secy of State) Madeline Albright were a blot on the nation's history. What a crew! (Treas Secy) Robert Rubin did not help either.

Fortunately the good news is, newspaper readership is down. I only rarely pick up a mainstream publication. I picked up the New York Post today, and read that the NYTimes Sunday edition circulation had plummeted 9.2 percent in the last six months. Its weekday circulation was down 3.85 percent. The Post's circulation was down 3.07 percent. Daily News did better, down 2.09 percent. Newsday was down4.68 percent, while its Sunday edition fell 4.83 percent. USA Today was up 0.3 percent. USA Today did a very good article a while back detailing who died where in the World Trade Center.

These papers can't figure out that they have not been reporting the news that people are looking for. Certainly their poor coverage of Ron Paul's candidacy must have chased away a lot of their readers. Reporters, in the meantime, are getting pink slips. A lot of these shills will end up as soda jerks pushing ice cream.

As Devvy suggests, let's blank out the MSM, and the numbers will tell the rest of the story.

I'm puzzled by the Arizona-Republic's headline, "Drinking the 9/11 Kool-Aid". What's that all about? The text of that same editorial (I assume it's an editorial, as there's no byline) doesn't say "Kool-Aid" even once, yet there it is in the headline.

Presumably it's an allusion to Jonestown, where the residents were forced to commit suicide by knowingly drinking lethally poisoned Kool-Aid.

Is the idea that Sen. Johnson's skepticism about the OCT is somehow like committing mass suicide, or perhaps forcing others to commit mass suicide? I don't get that one. Perhaps someone here with expertise on the use of metaphor can explain it.

I'd think that drinking the Jonestown Kool-Aid would be an infinitely more apt metaphor to describe those who swallow the lies of the government as dutifully passed on to them via MSM organs like the Arizona-Republic. But, hey, maybe that's just me.

Shifting gears a bit, here's an excerpt from the editorial that also puzzles me:

"Now, we take no issue with private citizens believing whatever fever-swamp nonsense, however outlandish, they wish about their government."

Huh? They take "no issue" with "outlandish" "fever-swamp nonsense"? (One might as well say: "I'm A-OK with people thinking perfectly awful things. Because that's the kind of nonjudgmental guy I am.") Glad they cleared that up.

(And what's the deal with "fever-swamp," anyway? It's not in my unabridged dictionary. It's not on any online dictionary or encyclopedia that I can find. There is something call "swamp fever," but that's always defined medically. If you do a search on "fever swamp", all you get are instances of people insulting others by putting them in that category. Perhaps it means delusional, as one might get with a bad enough fever. Whatever the case, I notice that people act particularly triumphant when they throw around this never-defined -- and hence hard-to-counter -- epithet.)

"We do take serious issue, however, with a public official affecting public policy on such grounds.

"If Johnson truly maintains mere 'questions' about the events surrounding the 9/11 attacks, she should have declined to vote. The likely truth of it, though, is that she really does believe her government capable of destruction of the highest order and is happy to express her delusions not just as a private citizen but as an elected official."

Why should a legislator refrain from voting against a memorial if she has grave questions surrounding the sentiments expressed on that memorial? Shouldn't the truth about those sentiments be cleared up first?

That's like saying a juror should be disqualified if he doubts the guilt of the defendant.

"Johnson reportedly will not seek re-election this fall. After hearing her 9/11 fantasies, we heartily approve."

Nowhere does this editorial offer a whit of evidence that Johnson's 9/11 opinions are fantasies. (Though it looks like she's bought into some mistaken ideas promulgated by Woods/Reynolds/Fetzer, a subject with which longtime readers here are familiar.) Too bad the Arizona-Republic can't be bothered explaining why the OCT is supposed to be so self-evident, and why any disagreement with it is so outrageous to its editor.