Knight Ridder - the only media left.

Knight Ridder may be the only real media left. After Cheney's speech where everybody else was focusing on what Cheney did or didn't say about Murtha, look what Knight Ridder found in the speech.

After freeing himself Monday from any perception that he was challenging Murtha's character, Cheney laid out the administration's defense of the war again - and again conflated the war with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, even though investigative commissions have concluded that there was no connection between them and Saddam Hussein.

Cheney said:

"(T)hey attacked us on 9/11 here in the homeland, killing 3,000 people. Now they are making a stand in Iraq. ... "

"Would the United States ... be better off, or worse off, with Zarqawi, bin Laden and Zawahiri in control of Iraq?"

" ... A precipitous withdrawal from Iraq would be a victory for the terrorists."

But the war in Iraq isn't primarily with terrorists. Cheney didn't note that Iraq's insurgency rises primarily from ethnic and sectarian tensions among Sunni and Shiite Muslims and Kurds, rejection of U.S.-led occupation forces, and loyalists to Saddam and his once-dominant Baath Party.

It's at the bottom, but at least it's there.