The mainstream media speaking truth to power

With the administration now in counterattack against those Iraq war critics that formerly supported the war (many of whom deserve criticism, but for their earlier support rather than their newfound ability to dissent), it is refreshing (and somewhat surprising) to see Knight-Ridder not only lay out the administration's various recent assertions against its critics (made by both Bush and Cheney over the past week), but also to put them into context and assess their truth value (revealing the elements of truth where they exist, the distortions of truth where they can be well established, and even noting "this isn't true" in one case where the assertion was plainly and demonstrably false). To paraphrase the Vice President, perhaps the mainstream media may yet recover both its memory and its backbone.