I've had a long evening. Surfing around the teevee in the past couple of hours, I heard several references to that New York Times story about the US POWs who were likely executed by the Iraqis. I thought, "Well, that sounds important. I guess I'd better go read it."

I just read it. In a 997-word story, exactly 152 of them were devoted to the subject advertised in its headline. In an extremely generous moment, I might be able to grant the segue of the fifth paragraph.

I'm not feeling extremely generous, though, after all the hype and then reading those other 845 words that had nothing to do with the headline or Eric Schmitt's interview on CNN a few minutes ago.

I only wonder what's going on at The New York Times that makes them think that they need to jump up & down and bark like some kind of sidewalk Rolex dangler in order to get people to read their complaints about Bush, which is what the rest of that story -- piled on those dead soldiers -- is really about.

Hell, man: I've been watching them complain about him for two years now. I don't like Bush, either, but you'd never catch me trying to con people into reading what I'd have to say about him.

This is utterly disgraceful.