Know your enemy, that is the subject of this evening's "Talking Points Memo." Once again, terrorists have killed innocent people, this time in India. At least 135 people have been murdered. Hundreds more hurt in a series of terror bombings in Bombay. Muslims are suspected.
Also, the mutilated bodies of two American soldiers have now been posted on a terrorist Web site for all the world to see. Despite atrocity after atrocity, many people still don't understand the nature of the terrorist enemy.
These killers have no humanity at all. They're Nazis. People who believe their brand of Islam requires them to murder infidels, babies, women, it doesn't matter. Just as many did not understand the Third Reich in 1936, 70 years later, much of the world doesn't understand Islamic fascism.
Part of the problem is how the press portrays the War on Terror. Again, it's important to understand the mindset that exists at The New York Times and other far-left media outlets.
The publisher of The Times, Arthur Sulzberger, believes the Bush administration is a danger to the world. He's convinced the president is using the War on Terror to turn America into a totalitarian state bent on enriching the powerful and violating the rights of every day people.
Sulzberger's put together a staff of true believers like himself. And they are bent on undermining the Bush administration. Not watching it, undermining it.
Three political columnists for The Times -- Maureen Dowd, Bob Herbert and Frank Rich -- wrote a total of 156 columns on the Bush administration in the past 18 months. Every one, all 156 were negative.
Some Americans have picked up on that blatant unfairness and are demonstrating against the newspaper. This demonstration happened today. These protestors are angry that every mistake made by Americans on the Iraq battlefield winds up on page one at The New York Times. Every anti-terror program is suspect and national security secrets are printed in the paper.
Now, the role of the press in the America is that of a watch dog. Certainly the Bush administration has made mistakes. It didn't understand the enemy in Iraq, for example. And we're now mired in a vicious campaign.
Honest reporting on all important subjects is vital to the nation. But the press is not supposed to undermine policy. By printing national secrets for no clear purpose, The New York Times and others have definitely undermined your security. By posing Gitmo rendition coerced interrogations and the like, the far left is making life much easier for the terrorists. There's no question.
They, of course, don't see it that way. The far-left media simply says it is exposing an incompetent president. But the truth is far more insidious. There is a far-left press jihad going on in this country. That's the truth. Their ideology prevents them from understanding true evil. Their theoretical outlook would make it impossible to win on the battlefield.
We're all living in a dangerous world, ladies and gentlemen. And when the American press undermines rather than questions, that danger becomes much more intense.
And that's "The Memo."
The Most Ridiculous Item of the Day
One of the most corrupt public works projects in American history was the Boston series of tunnels known as the Big Dig. The enormous cost overrun shot up the expense to 14 billion taxpayer dollars.
Now, just three years after the project was deemed completed, the tunnels are said to be unstable. Yesterday, 38-year-old Melina Delvalle was killed when a 40-foot piece of concrete fell from the ceiling and crushed her Honda. Massport authorities say they'll get to the bottom of the problem. But we already have.
The Big Dig was a criminal enterprise from the get-go with politicians failing to supervise the project. Ridiculous.
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