Tough day today; medical mini-emergencies, appointments. Two letters in a local fishwrapper. Compare and contrast:

Zarqawi coverage emphasizes bias
Sadly, I'm not surprised that the front page emphasis on June 8 was on the losing Miami Heat rather than on the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. After all, basketball is more important than the elimination of one of the world's most murderous monsters. No big deal that hundreds and probably thousands of Iraqi civilians and U.S. military personnel may be spared death and injury by his demise.

If Clinton, Gore or Kerry (or Hillary) had been president during this hugely significant event, the story with photo would have taken up the entire front page with headlines praising the administration. The Heat and Shaq would have been relegated to page one of the Sports section.

Like Dan Rather, et al., have claimed, there is, of course, no liberal, anti-conservative bias in the media (or is there?). [Your newspaper] has done a huge disservice to our brave military personnel in Iraq.

Alternative news universes
The writer of the June 26 letter, "Zarqawi coverage emphasized bias, cited the fact that the killing of Zarqawi was not the only story on the June 8 front page as evidence of anti-Bush bias. "No big deal that hundreds and probably thousands of Iraqi civilians and U.S. military personnel may be spared death and injury by his demise," he opined.

I guess if you are a fervent supporter of Bush's war, you feel like any rare bit of good news from the nightmare that is Iraq should be shouted from the rooftops. I would submit that if the letter writer was so concerned about Iraqi civilians (over 120,000 dead) and U.S. military personnel (over 2,500 dead), he would not be supporting this unnecessary war based on a pack of lies.

If the writer is so distressed by what he perceives as liberal bias in the media, I suggest he stick to watching the Fox News Channel, where there is always an al-Qaida-Saddam Hussein link, and weapons of mass destruction have been discovered in Iraq. In the alternative universe that is Fox News, there are only two kinds of Americans: God-fearing supporters of George Bush or traitors who love terrorists and hate America. Pass the Kool-Aid, Jethro.

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I suppose that as long as Mr Bush's Occupation goes on, all semblances of normal life in the US must stop. No basketball, baseball, football (or futbol.) No NASCAR, obviously. Many of us already have meatless Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, but that's because so many of us can't afford meat everyday because of the lost jobs under Mr Bush's "stewardship" of what was once the world's most-envied economy.

And lemmings like the first writer can afford computers to send letters like that because of Mr Clintoon's stewardship of the economy, but that's a bad thing because the lucky guy caught a bj from a stalker.