Free Republic

As happened with the capture of Saddam Hussein and the "shock and awe" bombing of Baghdad, some American news organizations yesterday covered the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi with marked enthusiasm, verging on inappropriate glee. Perhaps the tone was set by the cheering and sustained applause by Iraqis at the Baghdad news conference announcing al-Zarqawi's death. But American television didn't have to follow that gung-ho lead to the extent that some channels did throughout the day. The 24-hour cable news channels and their Web sites were the worst offenders, though other news organizations shared that lack of proportion and restraint....

Mickey Kaus at Kausfiles.com says that the gay-cowboy movie Brokeback Mountain has the same marketing strategy as Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11. Both, he says, have been hyped as blue-state movies that are reaching and changing minds in the cities of red America. He calls this the "Heartland Breakout Meme”. ("Meme" refers to a cultural copying unit that hops from brain to brain without much thought or any at all). What Kaus means is that the mainstream media keep reinforcing ideas liberals want to believe, whether they are true or not. But the alleged breakout of Fahrenheit appears to be myth,...