You Think?

The front page of a great metropolitan newspaper is a tale of scandal, disease, mayhem, disaster, crime, and war. We are shocked, grieved and frightened.

And that’s as it should be. There exist local papers, or other places behind that front page, where we can check the sports scores, read about the Boy Scouts, or get the latest cookie recipe.

There is no better newspaper in the United States than the Washington Post. It’s front page is regularly aflame with scandal, disease, and so on, and so on. It flows like a great, thick blood stain from the upper-right of the page, announcing deaths from avian flu or indictments of politicos, seeping down and to the left where, in that more remote corner below-the-fold, one might find a grisly murder, merely local.

Except today, that is. In a phenomenon remarked upon early this morning by the Farmer’s Wife, it’s as if the Washington Post has published a special edition, brought to you by the Department of DUH. Every story evokes a well-earned “you think?!”

Beginning in that fabled upper-right-hand corner is a four-column headline:

Alito Says He'd Keep 'Open Mind' on Abortion
Nominee Avoids Detailing Views on Controversial Issues

Wow! A judge promises that he won’t prejudge cases, and allows as how he’s not about to respond to substantive, hypothetical questions that put him in the position of having agreed in advance how he’d rule on important matters. You think?

Next up:

Lobbying Colors GOP Leadership Contest
Rivals for DeLay Post No Strangers to K Street

No lie! Jack Abramoff pleads guilty to showering Congressmen with zillions of bux swiped from Indian Tribes, causing The Hammer to quit, and lobbyist cash is an issue in the resulting battle of succession. Who’d’a thunk it?

Moving right along, we come to

Iran Restarts Key Portion of Nuclear Program

Shocking. Amazing. Who is so farsighted as to have been able to predict this turn of events? You mean they’ve decided that having nukes is better than not having nukes, so long as neither Europe nor the United States seems willing to do anything to stop them? You think it’s possible they’ve judged that there’s, at the very least, more to squeeze out of the West? You think?

Moving clockwise to the bottom-left corner is this headline about former D.C. Mayor For Life Marion Barry:

Barry Tested Positive for Cocaine Use in the Fall

And this is news because everyone thought . . . . ? No, it’s news because everyone’s reaction is “Here’s a guy who’s gonna die with his boots on.”

And, finally, this remarkable story in the upper-left corner:

D.C. Water Is Under EPA Limit On Lead
Standard Is Met For a Full Year

The public water supply in the capital city of the richest, most technically advanced nation in the history of the world is no longer poisoned with lead, and has pretty much been safe to drink for as long as 12 months. Now there’s a claim Baghdad would be proud to make. (What? Oh, really?) Well, never mind.

Go see for yourself at The Washington Post.

We're a little concerned that the editors may try to compensate in tomorrow's edition. Do you suppose the Post has access to nukes?