Readers of the largest, most prestigious American dailies are being treated to a propaganda campaign unprecedented in modern times. In their effort to defeat President George Bush, the New York Times and the Washington Post often choose to run stories and write op—eds that target certain groups and practices for opprobrium, and then direct the reader's anticipated outrage toward George Bush. Anything which might diminish his base of support is fodder.

Today, the aim is to generate hostility towards George Bush among the military.

The Times runs an article on how private insurance companies sometimes sell policies which are unnecessary and overpriced to soldiers. This sad exploitation has been allowed to fester with the approval of the Bush Administration, of course.

Following the marketing maxim that repeat exposures are needed to leave an actionable impression,  the editorial page hits this subject again.

But this practice has prevailed during the terms of several Presidents. One would search in vain for a comparable Times investigation under President Clinton's reign. Why tackle the subject now? After all, the Times has never seemed very solicitous towards soldiers in the past, and often depicts them as being confused and unintelligent, certainly not worthy of respect by Eastern elites.
 
Today, the Washington Post runs an article headlined A Shrinking Base for Bush, highlighting increasing disenchantment with President Bush among service personnel. 

Perhaps the partisan press has been reading all the stories about the extra effort being expended to ensure that our military personnel are able to register and vote by absentee ballot, and deliver their ballots in time to be counted. Perhaps they remember that the Gore campaign unsuccessfully attempted to disqualify military absentee ballots in Florida, despite self—righteous proclamations about the need to count 'every ballot,' even those spoiled by voter error. And then Gore lost Florida, by every count.

They know that the military vote is substantial, and that it is heavily pro—Bush. So we can expect a steady drumbeat of stories promoting the company line that the military is being screwed by George Bush, and that our most patriotic citizens hate him.