The Tribune Holds Us in Contempt.

I think the members of the Tribune editorial board hold us in contempt. Seriously, I think they do. They must look out of their office windows and they envision a few pieces of ignorant conservative flotsam floating in a Democratic sea. There's no other way to explain their recent publication of a Rick Mercier article. (Reprinted here.)

Ostensibly about the Newsweek fiasco, the story quickly morphs into an attack on Bush and the neo-Agnewites. (Rick Mercier's word, whatever it means.) According to Rick, there's no left-wing bias in the press, and those that assert one are simply trying to divert your eyes from the fact that conservatives are evil and deserve to die.

Open note to the Trib Editorial Staff: You are leftists. We all know it. Most of us read the Tribune because there's no choice. Don't pretend to be moderate; you're not. Don't pretend we're extreme; we're not.

You pluck a guy out of mid-air, Rick Mercier, from Fredericksburg, Virginia, not because his life experience has anything to do with ours, or because he has anything new or significant to offer, but because it's a nice anti-Bush screed disguised as analysis of the Newsweek fiasco. We're not nearly as stupid as you must think we are or, as I say to my kids, we're not as stupid as we look.