Is it my imagination, or is there a sudden hush in the shrieking media barrage today? Was it only yesterday that the NYT and WaPo were roaring and thundering, month after month, at President Bush and the GOP ——— to surprisingly little effect? Have we run out of phony scandals yet? Where is the Bush = Hitler crowd?

To be sure, the Kossacks are still fussing in a corner of the web. And any moment now the heavy artillery of the Left may resume lobbing shell after exploding shell at the White House, the neocons, the Army, Navy and Marine Corps, not to mention Big Oil, Big Business and Big Fatty Food. It's all they know.

My intuition hints at something else. Has an email has gone out from Hillary's campaign? Has somebody run a panic poll?  Has Murtha been told to shut it for now?

Maybe the Democrats just got it ——— that they have now defined themselves to lose the 2006 elections. The Democrat Party stands for open treason in a time of war. Their house journal ——— the New York Times ——— has made it official, by publishing secrets that will surely end up killing US agents, soldiers and allies in the field. The next big terrorist attack will point the finger of blame at our domestic Fifth Column ——— the media establishment. Where will the next terrorist hammer fall?  Israel — London — New York City? Wherever it does, the guilty party is now beyond reasonable doubt in the eyes of millions of Americans.

Just to top it off, in a fit of  hubris the NYT has published the home addresses of Dick Cheney's and Donald Rumsfeld, complete with a photograph pinpointing a hidden security camera in Rumsfeld's driveway.  It is a plain invitation to terrorists and crazies: Go and kill these men. Here is where they live. Just drive a truck bomb past this house, or crash a private plane with half a ton of ammonium nitrate. Go ahead. We're pointing the way. You know the reasons why ——— we've riled you up, day after day, for six whole years. Now you know where they live. We are protected by the First Amendment. We are above the law.

This administration's greatest gift is its enemies. The Attorney General could appoint a Special Prosecutor to ferret out the New York Times' spies in the CIA, State, the Pentagon, Congress. The precedent has been set by Plame—Wilson, first stoked by the NYT Editorial Page. Spies can be sent to jail. Journalists can be jailed for hiding their sources.

My guess is that the Attorney General will never do it. He doesn't need to.

All the administration needs is a thirty—second television ad in late September.

Still Photo: 9/11. A man jumping from the burning Twin Towers.

Still Photo: President Bush at Ground Zero.

Still Photo: Media headlines attacking Bush.

Still Photo: A wounded soldier with the President.

Zoom in on the front page of the New York Times, with a voice—over saying:

"Would you vote for these people to protect your country?"

J. R. Dunn   7 4 06